


To Be Someone

by Lisa_Telramor



Series: Robo!Kaito [3]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Polyamory, Banter, Common Cold, Experimented on, F/M, Friendship/Love, Healing, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, Medical Trauma, Minor Violence, Multi, Needle Phobia, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robot!Kaito, Robots, Self-Acceptance, age reduction a la detective conan, and kind of being tortured, deaged!kaito, how are we phrasing this, kaito remembers dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisa_Telramor/pseuds/Lisa_Telramor
Summary: Kaito died. He was replaced by a robot. These are facts. And yet somehow he's still here, in a child body, and nothing is the same. Kaito tries to find his place in a world that's seemed to have moved on from him.
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid/Nakamori Aoko, Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid/Nakamori Aoko, kuroba kaito!original & kuroba kaito!robot
Series: Robo!Kaito [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942261
Comments: 31
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahahaaaaaa. This took way longer than I thought it would. I started writing it immediately after finishing Be A Better Me, and yeah. I paused to write a bit of ofic, then had a month to write the halloween fic in there so here's this I guess??? I promise it ends on a happy note, tho obviously there's some angst here. (I'm nothing if not on brand haha) All things considered tho, I have to be pleasantly surprised at how much writing I've put up here this year guys. I feel good about it for once :') 
> 
> Hope you like this sequel! (And thanks for all the comments on the other fics, I mean to get back and answer but I have been having one of those weird brain things blocking me from doing so again. I read every one tho and feel so much love for you readers who leave them <3<3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo this starts with Kaito right after the doctor kidnapped him and is experimenting on him. chapter also contains panic attack later over needle phobia. Based a bit around my own needle phobia.

He hurts. His head aches and his eyes ache from trying to focus and Kaito knows what a concussion feels like. It’s not a terrible one, but it’s definitely a concussion. There’s a crazy old man talking about brains and test subjects and a blank _thing_ sitting on a table that looks more and more like Kaito with each passing minute the old man works on it.

Kaito would think it’s a corpse, but Kaito saw wires before the old man layered some kind of nasty skin and fake (god he hopes it was fake) hair over a silvery skull. It’s like the guy had a build-a-Kaito waiting the whole time and just needed the last finishing touches.

It’s creepy as all hell and Kaito would rather pretend to still be unconscious than watch, but any information is still information. How long was the guy planning to kidnap him? Or is Kaito really that easy to copy onto some weird robo-doll? He tries to shift subtly and finds his arms pinned down by leather cuffs at his wrists and elbows. Same with ankles and knees. Fuck. He doesn’t have his shirt on, no access to the hidden pockets. He’s lucky he still has pants, but it’s not like he can reach anything hidden there.

The doctor moves to a side cabinet, pulling out something that looks an uncomfortably lot like blood. He tsks under his breath. There’s something just out of Kaito’s line of sight behind him the doctor keeps going to, but when Kaito tries to turn to see, his head hurts so bad he lets out a groan. The sounds of tinkering stop.

The old man walks into line of sight. There’s a sickly red smear on surgical gloves and Kaito’s mildly terrified that there’s an actual corpse somewhere behind him. “Oh,” the man says. “You’re awake.” He looks like some mad scientist out of a children’s cartoon, and really the lab setup and strapping teenagers to tables really just completes the vibe. “I was starting to think I’d caused permanent damage and that would be a waste.”

Kaito flinches as a surprisingly strong hand grabs him by the chin and his personal space is invaded. “Hmm, bit of a concussion. Might cause problems in the transfer.”

“Transfer?” Kaito rasps.

The old man ignores him, going back to the robot. He plugs something into its head muttering about comparisons and brain viability and… hell if Kaito knows. Kaito tries twisting his wrist in the restraint and it barely budges. Okay. Okay, not good. Then the old man approaches with a metal thing that looks like a mind-melting helmet from a bad sci-fi movie.

“Is there a hidden camera?” Kaito tries to joke. “Because your aesthetic is B-movie villain level.” _Don’t touch him, don’t touch him, don’t—_ The man puts the helmet on and it’s uncomfortable and weirdly warm and sticky on the inside where it touches his temples.

“Relax it will be over soon,” the man says like that’s not one of the most terrifying things he could say.

“Who even are you?” Kaito starts trying to struggle, pain be damned. “Where is this, what are you doing?”

He’s ignored as the old man goes to a computer screen full of incomprehensible charts and words too far away to read. He hits a few keys and the helmet goes almost hot and Kaito’s head feels hazy. He panics.

“ _Stop stop stop, what are you doing, stop,”_ Kaito says as something in his temples hurts. He feels the helmet slip and there’s a fraction of relief. Then it suddenly stops and the old man is in front of him again.

“Stay still or I’ll sedate you.” The helmet is fixed.

Kaito, naturally, does not stay still. The man comes at him with a needle.

o*O*o

The second time he wakes the old man is behind him, talking about failures and intermediaries. There’s clacks of metal on metal and a few softer, more organic sounds that turn Kaito’s stomach. The world spins. Metal heats on his head. He passes out again.

Light, words, his own and the doctors blurring together. Heat. Darkness.

A haze, a mess, he knows he’s hearing words but he can’t focus. Kaito struggles panic rising in a primal way about something he can’t even remember but there’s a bright light in his eyes and everything hurts. The world tilts and turns, a blurring whirl of color and light and sound like a fairground ride only it’s just his head. Kaito retches and there’s the glint of something out of the corner of his eye. Needle. No. He can’t—

o*O*o

The fourth?—Fifth? How many times now?—time, he sees his own face staring back. Kaito’s heart speeds up. What the fuck. The face smiles, exactly like his own smile. His own voice says, “He’s awake.” Then, “How does it feel to be in the presence of the superior form of you?”

Kaito stares.

The old man appears in the corner of his eye. “Give some basic information,” the old man says, to the thing with Kaito’s face.

The robot smiles wider. “Kuroba Kaito. Age sixteen, mother Chikage, father Toichi, deceased. Best friend Nakamori Aoko. Hobbies magic, dove rearing, and—” He moves his wrist how Kaito would to make a flower appear, pulls it off perfectly just like Toichi taught Kaito and Kaito cuts the thing off without even meaning to.

“What the hell?! Are you—did you—Is this some kind of mind-reading shit?”

“Memory transfer,” the doctor corrects, scribbling on a clipboard. He glances toward the computer. Back to Kaito. “Congratulations. You’re going to be the first in a series of androids indistinguishable from human form.”

“Almost,” the robot corrects. “We’ll be better. I am better.”

“Yes, yes,” the scientist says dismissively. “The transfer seems to have worked better this time.” _This time?_ “The synthetic brain interface seems to have a better transfer rate than the digital.” He makes a note. Kaito sees the robot scowl before smoothing its face in a perfect replica of Kaito’s poker face smile. “Using that as an intermediary should fix the hiccups, though I suppose next time I’ll avoid the digital altogether… Truly I will create a superior being,” he says.

“Stronger, faster, smarter,” the robot says.

“Of course. Hmm, I’ll need more data long term, but I suppose we have the main parts.” The scientist moves away but the robot stays. Staring.

“You pride yourself on being the best and unique,” the robot says. “You are not.” It smiles and slips into Kaito’s inflection. “Do you think anyone will notice you’re gone? Or more… that you’ve been improved?”

Kaito feels chills.

No. No, they’d notice that _thing_ they’d—

The man comes back and there’s another syringe in his hand. Kaito tries. Kaito really tries to get free, every technique he’s ever learned, but half of those rely on being aware of how to hold your body when you’re tied up and the other half rely on tools and he _can’t_. His heart is rabbit-fast in panic and he can’t breathe and the lights are still too bright for his aching head. His voice—he barely notices speaking—is saying “ _No no nonono,”_ over and over again until the words run together but there’s still the prick of a needle in his arm and the old man watching with dispassion. The robot smiles, a sadistic, cruel thing that Kaito honestly doesn’t think he’d be capable of, and Kaito’s arm burns. His arm burns and his lungs ache and he can feel his heart struggling. No. No.

That thing is wearing his face. That thing is going to leave and walk into Kaito’s life. That _thing_ is going to go near Aoko and. And.

There’s spots of light and black haze vying for control over his vision. Everything is burning. He’s going to die. Kaito chokes a breath. He’s going to die.

No one is going to even know.

The last thing he sees in that damn smile on an exact replica of his own face.

o*O*o

An unsettling smile, cold eyes boring down into him, gunshots in the dark, white suit flashing in moonlight. Broken mirrors.

Toichi’s hand on Kaito’s small wrist saying, “ _Like this, Kaito, you hold your hand like this.”_

Aoko at a window, tears on her face, watching, waiting, her mother not coming home and Kaito useless, uselss, useless.

Fire, throat raw from screaming, his hands reaching even as his mother held him back. Rain on a windowpane and an empty living room and silence that grates down to his bones. An unsettling smile. A painting that changes to a hidden room. Aoko crying becoming Aoko laughing becoming Aoko trying to kill him with a mop becoming—

An unsettling smile, cold eyes, needles coming toward his face. _“Stay still.”_ Burning. Black, black, black emptiness and nothing, no touch or sight or sound or any kind of sense. A void.

 _This is death_ , something whispers. _This is death, an endless void interspersed with the worst moments of your life._

 _“I’m going to America,”_ Kaa-san says. Her face a blur, just clear eyes and dark pink lipstick that can’t hide how faint the smile lines are compared to when Toichi—

An unsettling smile, cold eyes, Kaito’s face, cruel, cruel like he isn’t, he isn’t, he really isn’t, steel-fingered grip holding him down and—

_“Do you think anyone will notice…?”_

Aoko crying at a window, Kaito holding back tears beside a closed casket, a void a void a void.

He’s burning alive—Toichi is burning—Kaito is burning alive.

_This is death. This is death. This is death._

o*O*o

Kaito wakes up. Everything hurts. He feels like a horse kicked him in the chest and his throat is raw and every muscle is burning. His head is the only thing that isn’t hurting and something about that feels wrong even though he can’t think why. Cool fingers touch his cheek and Kaito groans, eyes fluttering open.

He looks up into his own face and feels adrenaline stab him like a jolt of lightning from head to fingertip. Lab, robot with the sadistic smile, old man with needles—! Kaito jolts up and away, holding on to inexplicably loose clothing as he goes, away from that touch. “What the fuck.”

Different lab. A small girl and boy he doesn’t recognize and a thing with his face, and an old man that isn’t _the old man_ and a foreign-looking teenager and—Aoko crying. Kaito flicks a look at her and back to the thing with his face. It doesn’t have a sadistic smile, looks worried, but it was created to be a perfect mimic so of course it looks worried. It’s right there, and Aoko’s here and it _interacted with Aoko_ and he has never felt quite so quick a flash of hate toward anyone or anything except that night when he learned Toichi was murdered.

There’s something stuck to him and Kaito’s skin crawls at any semblance of restraint, rips it away even though it stings at his temples. The robot says, “Wait,” like Kaito should let them keep experimenting on him and he has no idea what’s going on but one thing is very clear.

“Imposter,” he hisses at the thing with his face. It flinches and pales in a convincing replica of emotion, but it’s nothing more than a robot playing at being him, and it’s still between him and Aoko. Aoko who’s moving forward and— “Aoko, step back!” Kaito doesn’t have a weapon or any tricks up his sleeve but like hell is he going to let that stop him from fighting back. He’s not tied down now. He won’t give them the chance to do so again.

“I’m not…” The robot looks hurt but it’s a lie. Kaito looks for a weapon, any weapon, but there’s just some trailing wires and a glass box he’s standing in that’s proportions are all off and— “I’m not…”

A door bangs and Kaito flinches, turns as his mother runs in. “Kaito!”

His mother? “Kaa-san?” And Jii is there too, but what the hell is going on?!

Chikage’s arms catch him and he’s trapped, panicking even though she smells and feels right, except she’s too big, or more he’s too small. Everything hurts and he can’t breathe and he can’t see the thing with his face anymore, where did it go? He needs to know where it went so it won’t hurt anyone, what is going on?

“Kaito,” Chikage says rocking him in her arms, “Kaito, Kaito.” She’s crying. He can’t remember when he last saw her cry except back when Toichi died and those first few months—

He holds onto her in return, feeling his eyes burn.

“You died,” she says. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

Kaito has so many questions and can’t fight the fear thrumming through him, but for the moment he lets himself cry.

o*O*o

Kaito doesn’t know how to move on. Is there a moving on? He’s a child again, his life has been replaced, and he died. And yet somehow didn’t. That isn’t something someone just miraculously moves on from in a night, even he knows that, but he just wishes things could go back to normal. Kaito wants to go back to teasing Aoko in class and jump back into plotting Kid heists because he only had just started that when he died and he’d never had a chance to test so many ideas. He wants to train his doves to do stupid pranks and pretend he isn’t invested in whatever Aoko’s newest boy band obsession is and pester Jii at his bar.

But all that’s impossible. He’s barely a meter tall and everywhere he looks he can see where things have changed. His home. Aoko. His mother. Notes in his own handwriting he’s never written and new belongings in his bedroom and new scuffs on the door and new clothing he could have picked out himself for how close it is to his taste. Because he has a robotic brain clone. That’s just kept living his life like Kaito never died.

The robot moves into a guest room when they go home, but the fact that he has to pisses Kaito off. They might have a truce but Kaito hates him. Everyone likes this robot Kaito and he fits in with everything in ways that Kaito suddenly doesn’t and he’s always got a stupid guilty expression whenever he meets Kaito’s eyes that Kaito wants to smack him for. It’s bad enough that Kaito was replaced, he doesn’t need the imposter feeling guilty about it. It would almost be better if he was a smug bastard because then Kaito wouldn’t feel guilty about hating him.

This robot has everything. And he’s even taking Kaito’s name.

Kaito scowls at his childhood bedroom ceiling, the familiar bed beneath him that’s too big for his current body. He hates this.

“Kai-chan?” his mother says, knocking on the door.

“I thought I was _Ayato_ now,” Kaito says grumpily even though he’s the one that chose the new name. He doesn’t hate the name, he just hates the fact that he’s the one being forced to change it while the other Kaito gets everything.

Chikage opens his door, coming over to sit next to him. “That’s just for official papers,” she says. “You’ll always be Kaito to me.”

“Why can’t we just both be Kaito?” He’s whining and he knows it. The worst thing is how he keeps feeling like a little brat compared to his robot brain clone.

“I know I have a reputation for being eccentric, but even I wouldn’t name two children the same name,” Chikage says, brushing the hair from his forehead.

“So say I’m a cousin.”

“Kaito.”

Kaito pouts and his mom pinches his nose like she did when he was actually this age and being a brat. “Kaa-san!” he complains. He grabs a pillow almost as big as he is and hugs it to his chest. “I just want to go back to…”

She sighs, petting his hair. It’s not the first time he’s complained. Considering the robot hasn’t complained loudly over Kaito’s presence he probably seems even more of a brat. He should be glad to be alive. Honestly he feels more like he missed a step and ended up falling the whole next flight down. “This isn’t forever,” she says eventually.

Isn’t it though? Even if Haibara managed to find a cure to this…whatever it is that triggered the change to this body there’d still be two Kaitos and Kaito isn’t the one who’s lived the last year and a half. He can’t just slip into place seamlessly. Not like the damn robot did to him. Kaito would have to start from scratch with people who didn’t know him if he wanted a life in his own name again. Kaito gives his mother a hard look, trying to impart all that telepathically because the words aren’t coming.

“We’ll make this work,” she says. Then she smiles. “You know I always thought about having another child.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did!” Chikage says. “Toichi and I talked about it a little over a year after you were born. But Toichi got a big break on his act and we ended up traveling so we decided it wasn’t the right time.”

Kaito can’t imagine a life with a younger sibling. What would he even do with a brother or sister?

“Of course,” Chikage adds, “then you went from being a cute, smiley baby to a hellion of a toddler and we decided that maybe one child was enough after all.”

“It never came up again?”

“Mm.” Chikage’s smile gets that sad tilt to it that means she’s thinking about the time around Toichi’s death and Kaito wants to take the question back. “We had you,” she says, “and we were happy. Of course now I have two sons anyway.”

Ugh. Kaito rolls to face away. “Well maybe I wish I was an only child still.”

“Too late.” Chikage pats him. “Things will get better. We all just have to adjust to a new normal.”

No, _Kaito_ has to adjust. The robot just gets to keep living Kaito’s life. He bites his lip to keep from saying that though. They’re even sending him to elementary school and he hated it the first time around. How is he going to stomach that crap again?

A knock on the door and it can only be one person. Kaito curls up a little tighter around the pillow.

“I made dinner,” the robot says, “if either of you are hungry.”

“Oh, Kaito, I could have done that,” Chikage says.

“It’s fine.” It’s stilted to Kaito’s ears, strained. Where does the robot get off being uncomfortable? _His_ whole life hasn’t been flipped upside-down. And since when has he been able to cook much of anything? Kaito gets by on simple quick-cook meals, take away, and mooching off Aoko when his mom’s not around.

“Dinner?” Chikage asks Kaito, a hand on his shoulder.

“Not hungry,” Kaito says.

“I’ll set something aside for later,” the robot says. Like he cares.

Chikage pats Kaito one last time and leaves. Kaito knows the robot hesitates for almost a minute before he leaves too.

o*O*o

Aoko has been Kaito’s best friend since they met. Kaito’s closest and, if he’s honest, _only_ real friend for years. He’s been in love with her for at least three of those years since the first awkward throes of puberty started making his voice crack and he realized making her laugh was like being punched in the gut in a good way. So of course he had to make her annoyed because seeing her laugh was too powerful to encourage it all the time. Kaito knows that’s not the healthiest response to the sudden realization of a crush, but that’s what happened and it’s kind of a habit by now.

But Aoko’s always been Kaito’s best friend and he’s been her best friend, only shared when they were at school. Except that now he’s not. Her best friend that is. That’s reserved for the robot Kaito.

Oh, Kaito doesn’t think they’re doing it on purpose. The robot keeps subtly making sure to give Kaito time with Aoko whenever she comes over and directs things back Kaito’s way all the time, but it’s annoying because he shouldn’t have to. Aoko’s Kaito’s friend so she shouldn’t look to the robot first or be more comfortable in his physical space than Kaito’s.

She shouldn’t look at him with that gentle smile she sometimes sent Kaito’s way or touch him more than she ever invaded Kaito’s space or… Or laugh like that for his jokes. And the robot really shouldn’t look at her like he’s in love with her because _Kaito_ is—

Kaito takes a breath and tears his eyes away from Aoko and robot-Kaito are teasing each other over homework. They’re not even alone is the thing. Chikage is cooking dinner and that Hakuba guy is at the table doing homework right next to them with a little smile on his face like this is all completely normal and something he enjoys at that. Meanwhile Kaito’s sitting there with kiddie homework shoving down the desire to scream.

Or cause trouble. Kaito balls his fists under the table before pasting a wild grin on his face and lobbing a confetti bomb right onto the robot’s head. “Fire in the hole!”

“Kaito!” Aoko shrieks as confetti goes everywhere.

Kaito laughs and runs, knowing she’ll chase. Good.

He has a split second of meeting the robot’s eyes and—Kaito doesn’t think about how there isn’t any hatred there.

Later the other Kaito corners him coming out of the bathroom. “Hey.”

“What?”

“You know I’m not trying to take her away, right? She still cares about you?”

After homework and dinner, the other Kaito and Hakuba had fallen into discussion and Aoko and Kaito had argued the merits of current pop music groups for the better part of an hour with increasingly ridiculous standards for why one group was better than another. It’s just the kind of thing they always did. Except a few times Aoko turned to the others and made them give a point and… “I know that.” Aoko wouldn’t chase him around or argue stupid shit if she wasn’t still his friend.

“Look.” The robot rubs the back of his neck looking at the ceiling like it holds all the answers. Not even a hint of a mask and it’d be embarrassing how open his is except that if you can’t be honest with your brain clone, who could you be honest to? “She loves Kaito. And you’re Kaito. And you’re not going to be small forever. And I’m not going to be around forever either, so you don’t have to worry about me stealing her forever.”

That’s a very roundabout way of saying he’s not planning on dating her, but… “What the hell do you mean you’re not going to be around forever?”

The robot raises an eyebrow. “I’m not? Ayato, I’m an experimental robot made from untested technology. There’s no way of knowing how long I’m going to exists. Think about it; your average laptop doesn’t last more than four years before a major part stops functioning and that’s with computers where everything is tried and tested.”

Kaito feels a lurch in his gut. He’s not sure which is worse, that the robot—Kaito—says it so nonchalantly like he’s not bothered by imminent mortality or that he says it like that’s supposed to be a good thing for Kaito. Which, technically it is for getting his life back but what the fuck. If he wanted to get his life back that way he could have tried offing him already and Kaito won’t because, again what the fuck, the other Kaito is an imposter but he’s still a person in the way that other robot in Kaito’s memory hadn’t really been. He has morals and can either feel love or fakes it so well it’s indistinguishable from real love.

“Hopefully by the time that happens Haibara will have a cure so you can have your life back,” the other Kaito goes on. “Maybe then you can tell Aoko how you feel and she’ll return it. I know it’s not as soon as you’d like but—ow!”

Kaito punches the robot in the gut. “What is wrong with you?!”

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? Don’t go punching people—”

“You feel guilty so you’re just going to roll over and die?” Kaito yells.

“It’s the reality of what I am not—”

“Are we even the same person anymore?” Kaito says. “There’s no way I’d just give up like that!”

The other Kaito’s eyes narrow in irritation and good! Better than him tip-toeing around all guilty. “Look, I’m not happy about it but I can’t help being a ticking technological meltdown waiting to happen! Getting upset about it doesn’t help anyone!”

“You know what I think? I think you’ve got a guilt complex and are glad you have an out!”

Oh, there is real anger. The other Kaito’s hands twitch like he wants to strangle Kaito and good, the feeling’s mutual. “I don’t want to die any more than you do!” the other Kaito yells back. “I’m actually getting toward being happy! Everyone is! Why the hell would I want to lose that?!”

“Then don’t!”

“How?!” the other Kaito demands.

Kaito bares his teeth. “You’re a computer, so back your shit up! Any IT person can recommend that!”

“Oh, and have more brain clones of us running around?”

“No, just files. Idiot. You’d only copy everything once, and just update it every night for each new day’s memory.”

“I… would that even work?” The other Kaito hesitates and Kaito rolls his eyes.

“How would I know? Hakuba’s your tech person. Ask him how your weird robo-brain works and if it’s even remotely possible.” Kaito glares. “Also, I don’t like you but don’t you dare be all passively accepting of your own death. What is wrong with you?”

The other Kaito gives him an incredulous look. “You want a list?” He shakes his head. “You’re the one who made us be the kind of fool to risk our life on the regular.”

“As Kid. And there’s risk-reward balance and there’s waiting for death that could be prevented. Idiot.”

“Oi. You’d think you’d be happy. It solves half your problems.”

“And if you die everyone will be sad! I’m going to call you Bakaito exclusively until you get a clue.” Kaito should care less but it just rubs him all wrong. That any version of himself would just… accept that. No. Kaito’s the one that actually died and he doesn’t recommend it. And as much as he doesn’t like it, the other Kaito dying would hurt everyone he loves just as badly—or maybe even worse than—Kaito’s own death did. “Talk to your mechanic.”

The other Kaito shakes his head like Kaito’s the idiot. Jerk. He doesn’t deserve how much Aoko likes him.

“…Can I call truce?” the other Kaito says after a moment.

“Depends. Will you try to live?”

“I’ll think about talking to Hakuba.”

“Good.”

“… I’m working on a heist,” the other Kaito says as they stand frowning at each other too long. “Want to help?”

 _No_ , Kaito wants to say, _because Kid’s supposed to be mine too, not yours_. But it’s a genuine offer and he’d be lying if he says he isn’t curious what kind of ideas the other Kaito’s come up with. “Fine but if your plans suck, I’m making a new one.”

The other Kaito rolls his eyes. “Just come on.”

If the other Kaito waits too long to talk to Hakuba maybe Kaito should just loudly wonder about Kaito’s lifespan in Hakuba’s earshot.

o*O*o

“I need to take tests,” Haibara says following him around her lab with a bland, irritated expression and a hypodermic needle.

“I said you could give me a checkup, not play vampire,” Kaito says, angling toward the door. Of course it’s currently blocked by Jii who’d taken him here in the first place. He gives Jii his best puppy eyes but gets nothing more than an apologetic look in return. Traitor.

“And I have told you that I need to keep checking all aspects of your health,” Haibara says, “because you’re even more of an anomaly than Kudo or myself. It’s a literal miracle that you’re alive.”

“Yeah, yeah, great,” Kaito grumbles. It’s the worst that this is a room without windows. Maybe an air vent…? It’s a lab after all. He scrambles up on top of a table. “You can take tests, but no needles.”

“Kuroba, a blood test is essential.”

“Look, I’m really grateful to be alive again, but just because you got me breathing doesn’t make me your little science experiment.”

“I’m worried about your _health_ ,” Haibara snaps, trying to corner him by a cabinet. Joke’s on her. Kaito scrambles up on top of it, high above the rest of the room. Haibara huffs, hands on her hips. “There could be delayed responses you idiot.”

“Robo-me said you did experiments on my corpse so excuse me for not believing you.”

She rolls her eyes. “If you drop dead again from complications, I told you so.”

“Then it’ll be on me, not you!” He feels like a treed cat, but he just. Can’t. She’d pulled out that needle and he’d been out of the chair and half across the room before he even fully processed the movement.

“Kuroba.”

“Haibara,” he shoots back. She scowls up at him and Kaito presses his lips together. “I can’t ok? Ask me to do stress tests or take my pulse a billion times, but no needles.”

“You can’t avoid them forever,” she says.

“I can sure as hell try.”

“Get therapy.”

“You get therapy,” he grumbles.

Haibara shakes her head but goes and puts the needle away. “I’ll let this go this time, but next time you’re giving me a blood sample. I’m not joking about it being important.”

Didn’t she get enough when he first came back to life? Kaito knows she got blood samples then, he’d just been too overwhelmed to put up a fight at the time.

It figures he’d come out of all this with another damn phobia.

o*O*o

It’s been a month and Kaito isn’t sure what to make of the fact that his mother’s still home. On the one hand, it’s more than he’s seen of her in ages (yeah, year and a half dead aside). On the other he’s not used to having her around anymore and he already has to get used to the other Kaito in his space. And Kaito bringing over Hakuba. And sharing Aoko.

Chikage’s acting like a normal mother and it’s weird. Even when she comes home it’s been just a week or so at a time, and they’d still had their own lives. Now they’re having sit-down dinners with the three of them. It’s _weird_.

Kaito watches her sort laundry like she did in his childhood memories before she started teaching him how to take care of himself and wonders when the other shoe is going to drop.

“Do you have things you need washed?” Chikage asks like she hadn’t already gathered his clothing from his hamper.

“I can do my own laundry,” Kaito says. He’s been doing his laundry for over three years.

“I know you can, I’m offering.” She tosses one of the other Kaito’s dark Kid-reconnaissance shirts into a pile of dark colors. “What do you think, should I wash the curtains or just get new ones? It’s about time for a new look around here.”

Kaito stares. “It’s fine.”

“I’m not sure when they were last washed… Probably over six months ago when Kaito got injured…”

Kaito twitches. Right, because the robot Kaito functions almost like a human and actually has to heal. So weird. Also… wasn’t that around when Chikage found out he was dead? What did she do, have a guilt-filled cleaning spree like she was trying to suddenly project herself into some kind of maternal stereotype? “Ask Kaito, he’d probably know.” He does his shares of chores at any rate.

“He never thinks to touch the curtains.” Curtains are just there, of course he doesn’t. “Hmm, maybe change them to sheer ones for more light?” Chikage looks around. It’s a mix of old-fashioned elegance and modern minimalism depending on the room. Kaito likes the old-style rooms with their decorative clutter better. “Maybe have some plants or something.”

“Which of us would take care of them?”

“You’re both taking care of the doves just fine,” Chikage says. “But I could take care of them.”

“How long are you planning to stay?!” Kaito blurts out.

Chikage pauses, a well-worn shirt in one hand. It’s stained, one of the other Kaito’s, with grease and grass and sweat and blood because it’s an undershirt and Kaito’s never been careful when he’s caught up in things about how his clothing comes out of them. “How long do you want me to stay?” she asks.

He gives her a wide-eyed look. They talked about it once before she started going to America, just a “How would you feel if I started travelling?” and he’d responded with, “You can do whatever, I can take care of myself. I’m not a little kid, Kaa-san.” They’d never actually gone into whether Kaito really wanted her to stay, and he couldn’t say he’d missed her more than he expected when she’d gone. She’d looked so much happier once she started travelling that he couldn’t really get too upset about it. Even if sometimes he needed her and she wasn’t there.

“It’s…” He looks away. “It’s not like you need to be here. I’m not actually six.”

“Do you want me to stay?” she asks, blunter.

Kaito crosses his arms. Does he want her here? “I don’t know. Not all the time. You wouldn’t be happy.”

She sighs and he’s suddenly hugged. “I want to be here if you need me.”

“But I don’t need you here, I just need you to be.” He can’t really take the words back, but it’s true. He’s terrified of her dying and being alone without either parent, but he’s also a pretty independent person just like Chikage is. He needs to know she’s okay and alive and still out there existing and thinking of him, but she doesn’t have to be glued to his side. He doesn’t know what to do with that. It’s been so weird having her right there for the last month.

Chikage sighs again. Kaito doesn’t know what she’s feeling. He’s not quite sure what he’s feeling either. The hug is nice though.

“Oh, are we having a family hug moment?” other Kaito says, catching them hugging on his way to do whatever he does with his time (living Kaito’s life).

“You’re not invited,” Kaito says grumpily.

Chikage laughs and holds out an arm and then Kaito’s squished between her and the other Kaito.

“I didn’t agree to this!” Kaito grumbles.

“Hugs are good for you!” other Kaito says cheerfully.

“I will kick out your kneecaps.”

“Good luck, they’re metal.”

“Don’t fight,” Chikage says.

Kaito surrenders to the hug. It’s not that bad. The other Kaito’s a lot softer than he has any right being considering what he is.

“Kaito,” Chikage says, “what do you think about sheer curtains and house plants?”

“Are we remodeling? Because I’d request a sun room.”

Kaito groans and squirms in their grasp. The hug has started to feel restraining. It needs to end immediately. The other Kaito lets go but Chikage keeps a hand on him. She keeps doing that, touching. Kaito refuses to look too closely at why because he doesn’t like to think too hard about the time he was dead. “No more than four plants.”

“Four’s a bad number, go with five,” other Kaito counters.

“Get cactuses, they need less care. If you’re going to take care of them,” he says to his mother. Chikage’s smile turns a little sad. “So you have a reason to come back, but still have time to go,” Kaito adds. He doesn’t want to reject her sudden attempts to be more parental again.

Weirdly it’s the other Kaito that pats his head and Kaito swats his hand away as his mother laughs. Ugh. Whatever.

“I’ll always have a reason to come back, Kai-chan,” Chikage says with a fond smile.

Kaito looks away and aggressively starts helping sort the laundry. Sheesh. So much more mushy-gushy emotional stuff these days.

o*O*o

“Kuroba Ayato, _sit down_ ,” his teacher says like she’s said ‘stop fidgeting’ and ‘please pay attention to class’ and ‘stop disrupting class’ and ‘stand in the hall until you can behave’ over the course of the last month. She’s this close to yelling and Kaito is a wrong word away from snapping entirely. “I am aware that school here is different than what you were used to in America, but you can’t keep being so disrespectful to your teachers and classmates!”

He almost laughs in her face. Instead, he looks her in the eye and says, “No,” before walking out of the room.

She calls after him, and no doubt is going to go to the principal because of this, but he _can’t_ sit there pretending anymore. That was only amusing the first week before it became maddeningly boring.

Kaito walks right out the building and no one even stops him. Walks down the road, past a police box and everything and no one stops him. Walks all the way home with a rising feeling of restless frustration simmering in him. Sometimes he wishes he’d taken self-defense courses like Aoko did as a kid and stuck with them because then he could punch something until he felt less off balance and not hurt himself in the process. Kaito had not taken any such courses though, so the next best thing would be to throw himself into a project until that occupies enough of his mind that he’s not stuck in his own rage.

He opens his front door and feels further irritation that he has to reach for the handle to get in.

Chikage is in the living room with a cup of tea that’s gone cold and the unfocused expression of someone who has been staring at a wall with their mind somewhere else entirely for some time. She doesn’t even notice Kaito’s there until he steps up in front of her. “Kai-chan? What are you doing home?”

“I walked out of class,” Kaito says.

“You walked out of class.”

“Yes.” Part of him wants a fight and Aoko’d be the best to go to for meaningless arguments and emotional outlet. She’s in class with the other Kaito though. Chikage’s the only one left, and he doesn’t expect to get more than a mild argument at best from her. “I’m not going back.”

“Kaito,” Chikage says, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She looks her age today, tired and worn down by the world and whatever’s currently haunting her thoughts. “You’re legally required to attend school. I can’t just pull you from it.”

“So let me skip some grades. Take a placement test. I can’t just sit there and be talked at in cutesy child-friendly voices about things I’ve known for almost two thirds of my life.”

Chikage isn’t amused. Her lips press in a thin line. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you know that it’s best not to draw too much attention. A six-year-old child ending up in high school or more would catch local attention if not national and that’s not something we can afford with our family background.”

No, couldn’t have people look too closely at the Kurobas. Not like Toichi hadn’t been internationally famous or anything. Couldn’t have them finding out that there wasn’t just Toichi who was a thief but a whole legacy of two infamous thieves. (He’d been pretty pissed when other Kaito filled him in on Phantom Lady. Because really? _Really?_ Neither of his parents shared anything with him in all these years? What next, were his grandparents actually mob bosses or something? Were they thieves too?

“I can’t go back to that classroom,” he says again.

“Then where will you go, Kaito?” Chikage asks.

“I don’t know. Surely there’s alternative schooling or… or… something.” Alternative schooling isn’t popular in Japan. Of course it isn’t, not when school is part of forming model citizens from the ground up and instilling community values and rigid boundaries that are perfect for setting people up for a lifetime of drudgery at expense of their individuality.

Or maybe that’s just the cynicism in him talking.

He’s so tired lately.

Kaito sits next to his mother on the couch, flopping back. Being a child again is a nightmare very few people could possibly understand. The only ones who could were—ah. “Beika. That’s where all the other cursed souls forced back to childhood are. At least then I’d be suffering with people instead of feeling completely alone.”

Chikage rubs at her forehead. “I could get you transferred there, but are you sure?”

“No.” He’s not sure of anything ninety percent of the time. He’s someone who pretends he’s perfectly sure until he believes it. He’s not believing it now though. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Not at the moment.”

They both sigh.

“I could take you back to America if you want,” Chikage offers. “We could live together there.”

“That would leave other Kaito alone.” And other Kaito doesn’t like to be alone, Kaito’s realized. He doesn’t always know what to do with Kaito’s presence, but he never rejects him, nor Chikage, and seeks out Aoko and Hakuba more than Kaito ever did with Aoko alone. Kaito feels kind of strange to realize he might be more inclined to wanting his own space than his own brain clone.

“He’d understand.”

Sure, but it wouldn’t make him less sad about it. And at the heart of it, Kaito doesn’t really want to leave Japan. His life’s been turned on end enough, he doesn’t need culture shock and full language immersion on top of it.

“I’d rather stay,” he says, knowing he’s sounding like a whiney brat but not caring enough to try not to. If he’s going to be stuck in a child body, he can at least indulge in some immaturity.

“Then we’ll stay,” Chikage says. She brushes the hair away from his face and Kaito lets her, internally enjoying the affection. Outwardly he’s still full sulk mode. He can do both. “But you do have to go to school, Kai-chan, so if you go to Beika please try your best to make it work.”

“I am trying,” he says.

“Hmm.” Her fingers scrub through his hair.

“I’ll keep trying.”

“I know you will.”

Kaito leans against her like he did when he was actually six. It’s funny how his mother can still make him feel safe even though he knows that there’s plenty she couldn’t protect him from in the world. “…How annoyed is Edogawa Conan going to be, do you think? He’s going to make a face like he bit into the sourest umeboshi.”

And Chikage starts giggling just like he hoped she would.

o*O*o

Kaito stands at the front of the class, rocking back and forth on his heels with a charming, friendly smile on his face—and subtly takes a photo of Edogawa Conan. The constipated mix of horror and irritation from the split second Kaito walked through the door are a delight. He snaps a second one of the tiny grin on Haibara Ai’s face as she takes in Edogawa’s expression. Treats for the other Kaito because he’d heard Kaito’s plan to transfer and laughed for ten minutes straight before demanding reaction pictures. How could Kaito refuse when he was so enthusiastic about it?

“Class, this is our new transfer student,” the teacher says as she writes his name on the board. Kaito carefully doesn’t laugh at her eyebrow twitch at the kanji in his first name.

“Hi, I’m Kuroba Ayato!” Kaito says in a chirpy, friendly kid voice. He’s decided that if he’s going to be stuck in this he’s going to relentlessly be _that kid._ The one that’s constantly borderline obnoxious but too nice to get actually angry toward, but always over the top. He’s dedicating himself to this performance. He needs something to entertain him, and being a supposedly-innocent and well-meaning nuisance is as good a way as any. (It’s not pretending to be normal like the other class, he can definitely pull this off longer.) “I moved here from America! I hope we can all get along!”

“Oh my gosh, Conan-kun!” a little girl says in a way-too-loud whisper. “He looks just like you! Is he a brother?”

“No!” Edogawa sputters. “No, we’re—”

“Cousins!” Kaito says because why not? Edogawa’s face goes murderous for a split second that Kaito faithfully captures with his hidden camera. Oh, this is opening up so many possibilities for beautiful chaos. “It’s been so long, Conan-kun!”

“…yeah… Ayato-kun,” Edogawa says between gritted teeth because he can’t say they’re not cousins with dozens of eyes on them. “I thought you were going to a different school.”

“I was, but I found out you were here and wanted to go to school with you! I can’t believe we finally have the chance!”

“Ha…ha… Yeah…”

Kaito grins with an edge of Kid’s fervor and drinks in the sharp look Edogawa sends back. Oh, this is going to be fun.

o*O*o

The kiddos mob both of them the first chance they get with a billion questions and it’s honestly a little overwhelming. But Kaito's in his Ayato persona so he answers them with responses made on the fly that get committed to memory so he can hold up his role without too many contradictions. Yep, Edogawa’s cousin, no they don’t see each other much, no they didn’t live near each other before, yes he did miss his cousin, no he’s not a detective, no he’s not into soccer, he’s into magic tricks—look what Kaito-nii showed him! They kids lap it up with appropriate oohs and awws and Kaito thoroughly enjoys himself. He always has enjoyed being the center of attention.

Of course then Edogawa’s friends mob him too.

“Conan, you never told us you had another cousin!” Ayumi says.

“It never came up,” Edogawa says with the tone of a defeated man. Kaito definitely wins this round. Not that it’s a competition. But if it was, he wins.

“Hey are you smart too?” Genta asks. “Because Conan-kun’s really smart. It’s kind of annoying sometimes.”

“Oi,” Edogawa complains.

“Ah, I don’t know if I’m as smart as Conan-kun,” Kaito says with perfect false modesty. “I get good grades though!”

“What’s America like?” Mitsuhiko asks. “Conan-kun never talks about it much.”

Kaito thinks about the trip he took to Vegas with his mother. “Busy,” he says. “Cities are really busy and there’s lots of people and outside them it’s just lots and lots of space and a lot of farms and desert and stuff.”

“You’ve seen a desert?” Edogawa asks in surprise.

“I’ve been living in Las Vegas, remember?” Kaito says, enjoying Edogawa’s eye twitch.

“Oh right. Nevada. Deserts.”

“You were living in…?” Kaito tilts his head to the side.

“Hawaii,” Edogawa says through gritted teeth.

“Right!”

“Waaah, that’s so cool!” Ayumi says. “You have to show pictures!”

Kaito makes a note to beg photos from his mom. She has to have a ton. “Sure! I’ll bring some tomorrow!”

Haibara watches all of this with an amused smile. Kaito meets her eye with a quick wink and she looks away, but clearly she enjoys seeing Edogawa annoyed as much as Kaito does. Ah, this could be the start of a friendship. If only she didn’t keep threatening him with needles.

“How far away is Hawaii from Las Be-Ve-gas?” Mitsuhiko stumbles a little over the foreign pronunciation.

“About as far from Tokyo as the capital of Laos,” Kaito says getting blank responses from everyone but Edogawa as they try to visualize this. “Closer than flying from Tokyo to Hawaii, but farther than flying to Shanghai,” Kaito tries instead and gets a little more comprehension.

“So a long way,” Genta says, and that seems to settle it.

o*O*o

It takes two days for Kaito to start needling Edogawa and for Edogawa to make pointed comments back. Kaito’d be annoyed except it’s way more fun than focusing on class. He passes notes every moment he can get away with it and enjoys how Edogawa stews in irritation while Kaito keeps a perfect innocent expression.

Of course Edogawa gets back at him during free time and ‘accidentally’ hits him with a soccer ball in PE. Kaito ‘accidentally’ messes up a magic trick and gets glitter all over Edogawa’s desk. And Edogawa. And honestly a lot more of the classroom than he meant to. Worth the cleanup though. Edogawa keeps finding glitter for days.

In the meantime Edogawa’s friends keep trying to drag Kaito into being one of their group. Which, ok. But detectives. Not his thing. Also they kids are kind of scary under all the cute? Kaito wasn’t expecting this. Haibara is laughing at all of them and Kaito realizes she’s probably the scariest of them and not just because she has needles.

He still has to sit through hours of pretending to be a small child.

“How?” Kaito complains to Edogawa in a rare moment when the child brigade isn’t around. “How the hell can you stand this?”

“Get a hobby,” Edogawa advises. “Or something to occupy your mind. I have a lot of cases.”

Kaito gives him a look of disbelief. A hobby. That’s it.

“Look, I let myself zone out ninety percent of the school day,” Edogawa says. “It’s not hard.”

“I’m going to die of boredom before this is fixed aren’t I?”

“Why are you so dramatic?” Edogawa complains.

“Why aren’t you _more_ dramatic?”

“I can’t be suspected of being Kudo Shinichi or I’m dead,” Edogawa says bluntly. “I have a lot of incentive to try to not be noticed.”

He’s not very good at not being noticed though. Kaito’s seen him around way too many police officers and heard dozens of rumors and he’s not even doing any digging. Kaito could do way better. He just doesn’t care the same way. “Wouldn’t it be nice to skip a few grades?”

Edogawa groans. “Please don’t tempt me.”

Kaito laughs. Of course he has to them keep positing what-ifs until Edogawa kicks another soccer ball at him, but Edogawa has his good points. He can almost see what the other Kaito sees in him.

o*O*o

Okay, he hasn’t said anything much about it but it is really starting to make Kaito feel weird seeing the other Kaito interact with Hakuba. Especially when Aoko is there too. Kaito would be the first to admit that occasionally he had no respect for personal bubbles, but the other Kaito is shameless. He leans on Aoko and steals food from Hakuba and casually touches all the time. Kaito’d always flirt with how close he could get to Aoko before, but… Even he hadn’t been draping himself all over her or giving more than shoulder or hand touches from time to time.

The most uncomfortable part of it all (well aside from Kaito’s low burning, ever present jealousy about how comfortable Aoko is with the other Kaito that she isn’t with him, the original Kaito) is that Hakuba—who isn’t a touchy person from what Kaito can tell from his contained body language—is just as casual right back. It could be written off as Hakuba being more or less other Kaito’s doctor. He’s probably seen everything by this point, or at least read about the other Kaito’s body. Of course he can casually turn other Kaito’s hand over and press on it to double check proper functionality.

But he doesn't move away when other Kaito sits too close or leans on his shoulder or grabs his hand to play around with because neither Kaito or the other Kaito like having their hands unoccupied by something.

Whatever it is, it’s clearly mutual.

Which raises a question that Kaito’s not entirely comfortable with.

Kaito picks a day that Hakuba is not there—because he’s not opening this conversation with him there, god no—and waits until the other Kaito’s guard is down while they’re both planning the next heist target.

“Hmm, these blueprints don’t quite match the dimensions I took on scene. What do you think?”

“Wouldn’t be the first place with a secret room.”

“They could have just failed to update the official blueprints, but yeah, it’s worth looking into. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do some vent crawling?”

“Hell no, too much dust.”

Other Kaito laughs and makes a notation. “If it is another hidden room Hakuba’ll be annoyed. He hates that kind of thing.”

Ah, a perfect opening. “I can’t believe you’re fine with him chasing you around heists and trying to arrest you and then coming over and having dinner the next day.”

“Well he’s not seriously trying to arrest me anymore,” other Kaito says. “And it makes it more fun.” He gives a wink. “You never got to have the fun of the extra challenge.”

“Ugh, spare me. Detectives are overrated.” Maybe the other Kaito’s just a bigger adrenaline junkie than Kaito is. “What’s going on with Hakuba anyway?”

“What do you mean?” Other Kaito flips a few pages in the notes and starts adding to their freeform idea board. It’s still weird how they have the exact same handwriting.

“Are you dating him?” Kaito asks going for a direct approach.

Other Kaito’s pen skids across the page. “ _Da—!”_ He chokes on a squeak.

Kaito honestly hadn’t expected that strong of a response. “If you are, well, whatever, just don’t mess with Aoko’s heart. I just didn’t think you’d be interested in men.”

Other Kaito’s face goes pink and he stares. Kaito stares back pretending he’s not embarrassed about talking romance stuff at all.

“We’re not dating,” other Kaito says.

“No?” He tilts his head. “So you’re dating Aoko?”

“I’m not dating anyone!” he says. “I wouldn’t.”

And there was a hint of that stupid guilt. Kaito internally rolls his eyes. He doesn’t hate the other Kaito near as much as he did, but he’s still really annoying sometimes. “Okay, but are you interested in them? Because you’re always touching them and it’s weird.”

“That’s. It’s. Not like that.”

Kaito waits. And waits as the other Kaito twists the pen between his fingers. “Okay,” he prompts as the silence continues.

“It’s complicated,” the other Kaito finally says.

Kaito narrows his eyes at him. Something ticks in the back of his mind. His interactions with Aoko. The way everything is intimate but arguably platonic. Not even teasing jokes about Aoko’s underwear and barely anything that would be taken the wrong way. Actually, those happened more with _Hakuba_ than Aoko and… Yeah. “Are you gay?”

“Excuse me?”

“Or… When was the last time you got off?”

“Oi!” The other Kaito goes bright red. “Don’t ask that kind of question!”

Kaito rolls his eyes pretending he isn’t a little embarrassed too. “We both know how often our hormones worked us up before.” A healthy sex drive isn’t something to be ashamed of. And they have the same memories of _that_ so Kaito is not going to be embarrassed by this. “I still have hormones even in this body.” He wrinkles his nose. “Which really sucks. Talk about dysphoria. Remembering you’re a child kinda kills the libido. So. What about you?”

“I…” The other Kaito blinks rapidly before going still. “There’s been a lot going on.”

“And?” Never stopped them before.

“…It’s been a while.”

“A week a while? Or a month?”

His brain clone bites his lip.

“Longer?” Oh, Kaito hadn’t expected that. But then again, maybe he is different there. A robot doesn’t have a need for a sex drive. “Have you got off at all in that body? _Can_ you get off?”

“I have! Jeeze! I’d have noticed a lot sooner if I couldn’t!” Other Kaito buries his face in his hands, managing to get a streak of ink all over his cheek because he’s still holding the pen. “Why are we talking about this?”

“I’m trying to figure out what ways we’re different,” Kaito says. “I thought it was the liking guys thing, but it sounds like it’s a lot more.”

“You don’t like men?” other Kaito asks looking up.

“Other than aesthetically?” Kaito shrugs. “Never met a guy that pinged me that way.” He likes pretty things, and that extends to people, but he’s not romantically attracted to anyone but Aoko, and he’s been physically attracted to women but never men. At least not that he’s noticed. This whole thing has him wondering if he’s missed it or if it’s actually unique to the robot Kaito.

“Really?” Other Kaito blinks. “I… could have sworn… Matsuda in fourth grade?”

“He was super pretty but not in a kissing way?” Kaito remembers wanting to be his friend but being intimidated by his appearance. And a little jealous because Aoko found him pretty too.

“What about Yuuta who was at our school for a year in junior high and kept trying to get us to join the drama club?”

Also a pretty guy. Kaito, again, likes pretty things. “We were friends?” Ish. Yuuta was good with stage makeup and Kaito swapped some ideas about makeup and costuming as he started learning that sort of thing for his skill repertoire. Kaito never spent a lot of time with him though and never did join the drama club. He’d fallen hard for Aoko around then anyway. More than the ‘oh she’s a girl and pretty’ way that he’d felt before. Yuuta was the closest he’d had to a friend outside of Aoko honestly, so he did remember him fondly and had been sad when he moved.

“Okay, then Ren-Ren from the boyband Aoko was obsessed with who we got obsessed with that we never admitted to her that we watched all the dramas and variety shows he was in even though his acting was terrible.”

Kaito flushes. “Okay, that’s like one celebrity crush.” Everyone has one celebrity they’re gay for, right? …Right? Oh no, is he going to have to have an identity crisis? Again?

Other Kaito looks torn between amusement and concern. “So that one we can agree was gay?”

“Shut up.”

That gets him a stifled laugh. The pen starts twisting between other Kaito’s fingers again. “I didn’t notice a change in sex drive after I got this body, not right away. I… just stopped thinking about that kind of thing as much. There’s been so much going on for months that it… Didn’t come up at all.”

“Stress raises our libido.”

Other Kaito shrugs awkwardly. “I thought it was because I was depressed.”

“Huh. Might wanna talk to Haibara about that. Or Hakuba.”

There’s still a blush on his face that’s not going away. How does a robot blush anyway? “No. It’s not like it’s something I need so…”

Right. Not like a robot’s going to have kids one day… Wait. “You didn’t notice anything different at all?”

“No…?”

“You know that means you have a functioning fake dick. With realistic jizz.”

The wide-eyed look that gets him is worth the discomfort of thinking it. “Uh.”

Kaito grins. “Wonder what yours is made up of?”

“Um.”

“Hmm, that’s one bodily fluid Haibara hasn’t examined from you yet.” He grins wider.

“No,” the other Kaito says. “No, we’re not doing science on… on that.”

“Actually Hakuba would probably know. He’s read the notes on your body. We should ask him.” Kaito pulls out his phone.

“No!” His brain clone lunges for him but Kaito’s really hard to get ahold of in this small body. He slips under the table and between chair legs as the other tries to catch him. “Oh my god put the phone down!”

Kaito dials. “Hakuba-san!” he says cheerfully as it picks up on the second ring.

“Get back here!”

Kaito dodges from under the table toward the couch Toichi put in his underground hideaway. “So, question. Shit!” Kaito feels a strong hand clamp around his ankle.

“I’m going to smother you with a pillow!” other Kaito says, face scarlet.

“Hakuba, what’s—”

“Don’t answer!”

“—Kaito’s body’s sexual functions—”

“I’ll throw you off a building!”

“Jizz, what’s his—” Kaito starts laughing uncontrollably as other Kaito makes an inarticulate sound somewhere in between despair and rage, while Kaito still dangles from his ankle. He drops the phone and ends up tossed on the couch as other Kaito dives for it.

“I’m so sorry he—” Other Kaito pulls the phone away from his ear. “He hung up.”

Kaito can’t breathe he’s laughing so hard. “Your face!” he wheezes.

Other Kaito throws the phone at him. It hurts where it hits him, but he can’t stop laughing. “I hate you,” the robot says.

Kaito wipes tears from his eyes. “Ah. Wow. Haven’t laughed that hard in ages.”

“Hate.”

“Relax, he probably hung up as soon as he heard you screaming in the background.”

“I’m not talking to you.”

Kaito snickers. “Okay. Keep telling yourself that.” The other Kaito’s face is redder than Kaito would have thought possible. “So I take it that you actually are interested in Hakuba, huh.”

“I don’t know!” He throws his hands up before slumping against the couch. “I know I love Aoko because you knew you loved Aoko and those emotions carried over. I don’t know what I feel for Hakuba!”

“So you do still love Aoko?”

“Yes!” There’s a frustrated groan as the other Kaito hides his face in his hands again. “Maybe not the same way you did though. I don’t know. It’s been too long to know.”

“Well, I like her as a person. She’s great, loyal and stubborn and kind and calls me on my bullshit,” Kaito says, figuring he probably owes the honesty after messing with the guy. Besides, he wants to know where other Kaito stands. “And she’s not supermodel hot, but… She’s really cute. Her smile makes me feel stupid and there’s nothing better than having all her attention on me, even if it’s negative attention.” It’s harder to say the other stuff. “And, uh, I want to kiss her obviously. And uh.”

“Sex stuff,” other Kaito cuts in. “You’re interested in sexual stuff.”

“Duh.” Thank you, he doesn’t have to actually say it. “But also domestic crap like having breakfast and dinner together and helping her cook and stuff.” And he’s blushing. Lovely. A glance shows that at least the robot isn’t judging him. He has a little smile like he knows exactly what Kaito means, and, yeah, he probably does.

“I want the domestic stuff too,” the other Kaito says. “Even arguing over which place carries better boxed curry brands or the best way to make omurice.”

“Yeah.” Wow he’s feeling too vulnerable all of a sudden. Kaito coughs. “Anyway. You?”

“Most of that,” other Kaito agrees. “Less of the sex stuff. It’s not that it’s not interesting at all… It’s just not what comes to mind when I think of her first, or even second or third.”

“And with Hakuba?”

“Ugh… More domestic stuff I guess,” other Kaito mutters. He rubs a hand across his face, like it’ll scrub away the blush. “I like that he’s smart and can follow my thoughts even when they’re jumping around like a bouncy-ball on a trampoline. And.”

“Uh huh?”

“I like that ever since he found out he treats me gently.”

They both know that the list of people who were actually careful with them is… pretty much nonexistent. Aoko is anything but gentle. Jii can be, but there’s gentle and then there’s deferential and that’s not quite the same thing. Chikage is kind but not necessarily gentle. Edogawa or Haibara? Ha. Hahaha. No.

“But it’s not in a way that makes me think he sees me as helpless? Because he’s still pretty ruthless toward me in other ways. He’s just careful with my feelings and careful when he needs to touch. And I trust him.” He sounds a little surprised even though it’s pretty obvious that the other Kaito trusts Hakuba a lot. “Shit, I really do trust him.”

“Huh.” Sounds like a crush to Kaito, but eh. Maybe not a physical one. “Kissing?”

Other Kaito’s face goes pinker. “Not… a negative thought? But not something I feel I need either?”

“Hmm. I dunno what to tell you then.” A pause. “Sex?”

Other Kaito makes a choking sound.

“You know you flirt with him shamelessly right?”

“That’s banter.”

“ _Flirting_.” Kaito pokes him. “No different than me teasing Aoko.”

“Then does that make your back and forth with Edogawa flirting?”

“Does yours?” Kaito shoots right back and laughs when he gets a wrinkled nose. “I’m not into Edogawa. He can be kind of creepy actually. The way he pretends to go all super-sweet, dumb as a brick kid when he thinks people are looking too close.”

“Wait til you know him better. He gets worse.”

“Worse?”

“Corpses. He’s like a magnet for murders.”

“Huh.”

“Yup.” They both sigh. “So. Can we drop this subject and agree that we’ve diverged at some point, and at least part of it is different biological functions?”

“Sure. But you really might want to talk about it to Hakuba. Figuring out how your brain functions differently could be important.”

“Ugh, don’t wanna.”

Kaito snickers. “Who of us is the kid here?”

“Both of us. Technically I’m only about two.”

“Fuck that, you’ve got almost eighteen years of memories. I’ve got a little over sixteen.”

“Mrrgh.” Other Kaito pops to his feet. “Heist?”

“Heist,” Kaito agrees, shelving the topic. He’s certainly got a better understanding of the other than he did before.

o*O*o

“What the fuck,” Kaito says, seeing a severed hand fall out of a locker at a park Edogawa’s cheerful kiddie group invited him to. “What the _fuck_.”

“Ayato-kun, don’t say bad words like that!” Ayumi says, looking a little sick as well, but not nearly as terrified and alarmed as a six-year-old should be at seeing a severed limb.

Beside them, Edogawa’s suddenly a completely different person, all sharp concentration and action. “Mitsuhiko, call the police,” he says, bending down to examine the hand. “Haibara, Genta, took around and see if anyone’s paying attention to the area.” He uses a handkerchief to open the locker further and reveals a gristly bundle of bloody cloth, a second hand, and a terrifying butcher knife.

Kaito is pretty sure he’s going to throw up. He’s almost definitely sure he’s going to throw up when Conan uses the handkerchief to _touch the severed hand_. He edges toward the garbage can, which irritatingly is taller than he is. He swallows, but then notices that there are more flies than a garbage can usually would have buzzing around it even with summer heat just starting to bring them out full force.

“…Conan,” he says, pointing up, really hoping he’s wrong.

Conan comes running and pulls himself up. His face twitches into an even more severe expression. “Well, at least we know where the head is.”

Kaito ends up losing his lunch after all.

o*O*o

“Who lets six-year-olds run all over a crime scene with a dismembered corpse?” Kaito demands to the other Kaito. “Six-year-olds!” He keeps seeing the limp, bloody hands and Edogawa’s face when they found the head and hearing Ayumi’s shriek when she uncovered the torso and—what the hell is wrong with people? Why didn’t the police intervene?

“Yeah, it’s like that,” the other Kaito says. “Edogawa just attracts murders.”

“What the fuck.”

“Yeah. I should tell you about the time that I ended up in a lodge and a bunch of people got killed. Or that time with the mansion. Or—”

“Is Edogawa cursed?” Kaito asks seriously.

“No, I asked and he’s not. Surprisingly.”

“Asked?”

“A witch.”

“Ah.” Kaito’s not even surprised witches exist at this point.

“As far as I can tell he just has really bad or really good luck depending on how you look at it.”

“Um, bad? Running into death and killers is bad?”

“But he solves the crimes and always gets out of it alive,” other Kaito points out.

“Isn’t that all coping mechanisms for shit luck?” Kaito counters.

Other Kaito concedes the point. “But you could say our luck is equally bad or good depending on—”

“No, we get ourselves into most of our messes on purpose. It’s good luck. The whole ‘I died’ thing aside.”

“Because that was obviously bad luck.”

“But I came back, which is smaller-than-winning-the-lottery chances good luck.”

They contemplate this a moment. “…Do you think,” Kaito asks, “my good luck will help counterbalance Edogawa’s bad luck?”

“Not by much?” other Kaito says. “At least if I’m going with my own experiences.”

“Hmm.” It’s worth a thought. “…I am not looking forward to more dead bodies.”

“It’s a little scary how quick you get used to it.”

Kaito shudders. What is wrong with people? “That might just be you, robot.”

“Brat,” other Kaito says, poking him.

“You have shit choice in friends,” Kaito says.

Other Kaito snorts. “Isn’t he your friend now too?”

Kaito thinks about how he put two dozen bouncy balls in Edogawa’s shoe locker the day before and how Edogawa had retaliated by an ‘innocent’ comment that led to Kaito bullshitting a story about a nonexistent family trip for half an hour with Edogawa ‘helpfully’ remembering differing details. “We’re not friends.”

Other Kaito just laughs like he knows something Kaito doesn’t.

“We’re not!” Kaito protests. “We’re… we’re practically enemies!”

The robot laughs harder. Kaito can’t even slip Edogawa any info to use against him in the next heist because any mental weakness of other Kaito’s applies to Kaito too. Although… “I’m telling Hakuba and Haibara you skipped your weekly diagnostic checks.”

Other Kaito stops laughing. “You watched me do them!”

“Did I though?” Kaito says. “Did I?” He runs before he can be grabbed. The only good thing about being this size again is that the house is full of places to hide until other Kaito stops looking.

o*O*o

Kaito looks at the scans Haibara takes of other Kaito with a mix of discomfort and interest. He can almost understand where the robot is coming from with his own traumas looking at them because there’s no way a body should look like that, let alone one wearing Kaito’s face. On the other hand, it is uncomfortably reminiscent of being in the mad scientist’s lab and has Kaito’s skin crawling.

He rubs his arms. It’s supposed to be his turn for tests next. Sure, he’s seen both other Kaito and Edogawa get examined before him, but it’s not any less terrifying.

Haibara has Edogawa off to the side, taking his blood pressure and pulse rate, already having collected blood samples. Edogawa looks almost bored like this is as routine as reciting their weekly kanji in school.

Kaito sticks toward the other side of the room where Hakuba is carefully double checking all of the other Kaito’s reflexes in his hands and arms. Those, it seems, break the most often. They haven’t broken yet that Kaito’s witnessed, but he’s seen the thin scars where they’d been fixed. Multiple scars in the case of other Kaito’s hands and no, not thinking about how it’s almost as much like vivisection as surgery when it comes to trying to fully understand the robot body.

Somehow the other Kaito is completely relaxed though. How? Kaito’d be running for the door if he thought he might need to be cut open. Then again, it’s probably because it’s Hakuba. Even Kaito can see how carefully Hakuba touches each and every spot.

“Your shoulder?” Hakuba asks, rotating other Kaito’s arm and shoulder through a series of motions.

“No pain. I haven’t run into anything either, but it’s not bothering me. No pins and needles or stabby-burny feeling.”

“Good.” Hakuba moves to other Kaito’s leg next and Kaito has to look away. It’s not even inappropriate, it’s just… Weirdly intimate for a medical evaluation. Especially with Hakuba kneeling to roll other Kaito’s ankle every which way and… Hrrm. Sometimes Kaito has to wonder what exactly Hakuba wants from the other Kaito because it’s definitely more than friendly looks sometimes. But neither of them have done anything with it and Kaito’s starting to think they won’t.

Because other Kaito’s got weird complexes and Hakuba apparently doesn’t have clear lines between ‘friend’ and ‘more-than-friend’ so far as Kaito can tell. Probably because Hakuba just plain doesn’t have many friends. In other words they’re both hopeless and if anything changes there, it’ll probably be because Aoko gets tired of dancing around things.

Kaito’s not sure how he fits with all of this. Because sometimes he has the exact same sorts of interactions with Aoko as the other Kaito and he’s not sure if it means the same thing anymore, and if it does, how comfortable he’d be in sharing.

Kaito knows he’s a possessive bastard, ok, he can admit his faults.

His fingers flip a pen idly back and forth. A checkup. Just a checkup to make sure he’s not… oh, going to destabilize atom by atom. Or keel over dead from heart failure. Or mysteriously end up poisoned. Or go catatonic again. Which it’s been a bit over a month; he’s not counting on it happening. But Haibara’s pretty insistent and he sees her all the time now. There was only so long he could put it off.

“It looks like a clear bill of health this time, Kaito,” Hakuba says.

“Yay, no surgery,” other Kaito says, echoing Hakuba’s weird, dead-pan humor. “I shall live another day.”

Hakuba rolls his eyes. “I think I might have the first prototype for your memory bank in a few days, but I think that’s all for now.”

Kaito flips the pen faster as he sees Haibara finishing up as well. “Kuroba,” she says loud enough to carry, and the pen slips in his grip and goes flying off behind one of the work desks.

Kaito clears his throat. “Yeah?”

“This time I need those blood samples.”

He taps his own knees double-time. “And if I still don’t want to…?”

Haibara gives him a deeply unimpressed look. Yeah, he knew he only had so long before he couldn’t push any further. That doesn’t make him any less terrified.

A hand brushes his shoulder and Kaito nearly falls off the lab stool he’s sitting on, strung too tight and nervous. “Hey,” other Kaito says. “You’re not alone.”

Kaito laughs, not even the least bit convincing. “Yeah, I know. Though don’t take it the wrong way, but you aren’t going to be a help here.”

A flash of hurt followed quickly by understanding passes across his brain-clone’s face. “Ah.”

Kaito smiles weakly. “Yeah.”

“Is there anything that would help?” other Kaito asks.

“It not happening?” But he knows he doesn’t have that luxury. “Not being in the lab?” he ventures. He doesn’t like it, too similar despite how different the places were. Labs are labs. Kaito’s eyes flick around the room. Haibara’s neutral expression, Edogawa looking tired and ready to leave, Hakuba’s slight frown of concern— Hakuba. Kaito’s brain latches onto him.

Hakuba treats other Kaito gently and with genuine care and Kaito isn’t the other Kaito but.

“Can Hakuba take my blood?” he blurts.

There’s surprised looks all around because Kaito usually doesn’t interact much with Hakuba since Hakuba’s other Kaito’s friend, not Kaito’s. Haibara and Hakuba glance at each other and she shrugs. “Go ahead.”

“And can we go sit outside to do it?”

“…It’s not sterile,” Haibara says with distaste.

“In the living room then?”

She pins him with a look. He gives puppy eyes back. She sighs. “Fine.” She goes and pulls out three vials and a sterile needle and tube set for Hakuba. Kaito can’t even let his eyes linger on it without feeling like he’s going to throw up.

He used to be fine with needles. Mostly fine with blood. Now both are…

Other Kaito rubs his shoulder and Kaito shrugs him away. Thought appreciated, not the time. Hakuba walks out first which is both a relief and not because now Kaito has to force himself to move. He hops off the chair and doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes on the way toward the living room.

Hakuba’s set everything up behind an open book so Kaito doesn’t have to stare at them. It’s surprisingly insightful and nice of him.

“Sorry about putting you on the spot,” Kaito mutters.

“I don’t mind,” Hakuba says. “I have the skills to do this, and if it makes you more comfortable than Haibara-san, I am glad to help.”

Kaito sits on the couch and thrusts out his arm, already shaking. “Just. Get it over with.”

“Would watching be better or worse?” Hakuba asks as he carefully wipes Kaito’s skin and ties a band around his arm. “My own preference is not to watch, but yours might be different.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t used to care.”

Hakuba hums. “Perhaps I could just say what I am doing instead?”

“…Not actually helpful I don’t think.”

A hand repositions his arm with a light touch, and curls his fingers into more of a fist. Kaito flicks a glance and has to stop himself from ripping his arm away. Hakuba doesn’t even have a needle in sight yet.

“Have you ever done breathing exercises?” Hakuba asks, not making a move for the needle at all, just lightly touching Kaito’s hand.

“I.” Kaito realizes he isn’t breathing and takes a breath. “Sometimes. For parts of vocal exercises.”

“Try doing one.”

Kaito tries, eyes focusing away from Hakuba on Agasa’s bookshelf. He starts trying to read the titles from across the room. Hakuba pats his arm. This is fine. Perfectly fine. Kaito’s legs starts jiggling lightly with excess nerves.

“Kaito said you’ve ended up helping Edogawa-kun solve a few cases lately,” Hakuba says out of nowhere.

Kaito’s eyes skip over a few novel titles. “Mm.” Hakuba’s not touching him anymore. He’s tensing up he can’t do this he can’t— “A couple. A murder and um. And a blackmailing.”

“Tell me about the second case?” Hakuba asks and Kaito tries to remember details.

“There was a woman who—” He feels a prick in his arm and goes rigid, stops breathing.

“Ayato—Kaito,” Hakuba says in a calm voice, “the case?”

“Um.” He can’t breathe. “She was blackmailing her cousin because. Um. Because.” He wants to run but if he moves now he’d rip the needle out and maybe hurt himself and—

“Blackmailed her cousin?”

“There was a daughter. Illegitimate. She was trying to get her cousin and the daughter out of line for. For succession.” Kaito can’t remember a damn thing about how Edogawa solved the case, the clues, how Kaito helped, none of it at the moment.

There’s a press of something on his arm and Hakuba says, “You’re done.”

Kaito blinks. Looks at his arm as Hakuba unties the band. There’s a bandage with a cotton ball already taped on him. “Done?”

“Done,” Hakuba says.

Kaito should relax, but strangely his hands just seem to shake more. This isn’t the first phobia he’s had but it’s nothing like his terror-startle-response feelings of his fish phobia. That’s fear and flight and this is feeling like he’s going to die and that’s two very different feelings. “Oh. Good.”

Hakuba crouches down. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I…” He tries to do the breathing exercise. “Yeah. Eventually.”

“I’ll go get Kaito.”

Kaito tries not to hyperventilate. It’s over, what kind of bullshit is this?? He doesn’t know how much time passes before he’s caught up in a hug. Other Kaito gives surprisingly good hugs. “What is wrong with me?” Kaito asks shakily.

“Adrenaline,” other Kaito says. “The bad fear kind of adrenaline.”

“This is embarrassing.” Kaito buries his face in other Kaito’s chest.

“I’m not judging. I’m pretty terrified of the lab too.”

“You didn’t freak out.”

“Not this time,” other Kaito says. “But I didn’t need to be cut open this time.”

“That’s…” Was he awake for any of those times? Kaito wonders with sick fascination. Was he conscious of what was happening, feeling…? It’s about as horrifying as what Kaito went through. “Please tell me she has enough samples for a while.”

“They should be good for a few months. It’s not just amount that’s the issue, it’s changes over time.”

Kaito groans. Then, “I didn’t thank Hakuba.” He’d done his best to distract him and get it over with fast too…

“You can tell him later.”

Kaito doesn’t argue. He closes his eyes and breathes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conan's his unofficial therapist lol  
> also Kaito's default humor is immature and he'd definitely make some dick jokes at some point, esp younger kaito haha

There are things he can’t do with Aoko anymore, things Kaito misses like complaining about their homework and shared teachers or the occasional rush around a room as Aoko chases him in frustration. Now, he’s in kiddie school again. Now, she’s too aware of how small he is to chase him no matter how annoyed Kaito makes her.

So it has been something like relearning a friendship with Aoko instead of just slipping back into one seamlessly at times. They walk together at the mall, originally a group of four with other Kaito and Hakuba, but the others had peeled away to do a bit of their own shopping and (so far as Kaito can tell) to give the two of them a bit of time to interact alone. It’s one of those nice gestures from the other Kaito that Kaito both appreciates and finds annoying at the same time.

Of course, even being on their own in the mall window shopping can’t be the same anymore. Kaito’s acutely aware of eyes on them and the assumptions being made. He looks like Aoko’s brother or cousin or some kid she’s looking after for the day instead of her friend. Kaito tries to ignore it. Aoko doesn’t seem to notice it at all.

“Kaito,” she says as they linger near an electronic store. “Look.”

A robot, simplistic and barely resembling the dog it’s supposed to be modeled on, moves in pre-programmed ways.

“It’s cute,” she says.

“It’d be cuter if it had fur,” he says. Just smooth metallic plastic casing and LED lights for eyes. Compared to the other Kaito, it can barely be considered a robot. “Agasa-hakase could make something better.”

Aoko rolls her eyes. “That’s not the point.”

“The point is singing robot dogs?” Kaito teases as the robot lights up and starts ‘humming’ a tune. Its eyes flash in time with the song.

“It’s small and cute, that’s the point,” Aoko says poking him in the side.

“Would it be funny or insulting to get Kaito a pet robot?” Kaito asks.

“Insulting?” Aoko guesses. Other Kaito’s sensitive about the whole robot thing in weird ways sometimes.

“Mm. These aren’t exactly sentient though. They’re not even as smart as online chat bots.” A couple programmed phrase responses, probably. A few recorded sounds and music. A couple movements at most. It makes him want to tinker and make it better but he doesn’t know much about robotics. He’s sure he could do better with a bit of time and effort though.

“Do you think Kaito would like a real puppy?” Aoko asks as the robot dog does a very limited turn-and-step motion.

“No.” Kaito wouldn’t want a puppy, so he doubts other Kaito would. They require a lot of time and attention that neither of them have or are interested in investing.

Aoko looks a little disappointed.

“What, do _you_ want a puppy?”

“Maybe not a puppy,” she says. “I always wanted a pet though.”

Her dad is allergic to a lot of animals though. “You can always play with my doves.”

“That’s not the same,” Aoko says.

“…There’s a pet store in this mall.”

She grins down at him. “Let’s go!”

And so they find themselves squished up against tanks filled with piebald mice and chubby hamsters and lizards. Kaito wrinkles his nose at the mice. Not a fan. Aoko on the other hand seems to love their pointy little faces.

“Do you think I could hold one?”

“They probably bite.”

She pouts and Kaito sighs.

“I doubt they let anyone who walks in handle them. That could be traumatizing for the animals.”

“Oh… Good point.” Aoko gives the tanks a longing look before moving on to the birds. These Kaito is much more comfortable with. He stands on tiptoe to look at budgies until Aoko picks him up.

“Hey!”

“Just so you can look,” she says.

“I’m not actually a kid,” he grumbles under his breath, a little too aware of her body against him with her arms around him. He’s half afraid to move and accidentally touch somewhere he shouldn’t.

“Say a word about my chest size and I’ll drop you.”

“I wasn’t gonna!” Kaito sputters. Aoko’s arms tighten, more like a hug than a warning and his face burns. Still, he can see the birds now. “They’re so small compared to doves,” he says.

“They’re a lot louder though.”

“Yeah.” He chirps and whistles softly at them and they chirp back, little heads turning side to side to watch him and flashing bright colored feathers. Birds are great. Cats and dogs might be smarter and mice or hamsters might be more convenient to own, but birds can be trained and are soft and can _fly_ and that’s never not going to be cool to him. Plus there’s something about having something so small and fragile trusting you enough to sit in your hand that fills him with warm fuzzies. Not that he’s ever admitting that to anyone. Aoko’s arms tighten around him again and he looks up to find her smiling at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says.

“Aoko…”

“Look, there’s puppies!” she says, carrying him over to little clear plastic stalls that hold three excited puppies all tumbling over each other to see who is looking in. They’re even louder than the birds, yapping away. “So cute!”

A puppy trips over its own feet. Another spins in circles. “Yeah, yeah, baby animals are all cute.” And destructive and unmanageable until they’re trained.

“Shush and let me enjoy the cuteness.”

Kaito opens his mouth to point out that any puppy in a mall pet store is probably from bad animal breeding practices, but Aoko looks so happy he can’t ruin it for her. Instead he squirms until she sets him down. There’s a couple cats at his eye level in a cage to the right so he lets her have her fun with puppies and makes blinky eyes at the cats until one of them starts purring at him.

That, he’ll admit, is cute.

“Sure you don’t want a cat?” Aoko says after her puppy fix.

Kaito lets a cat bat at his finger through the bars. “Cats eat birds,” he says.

“You’re being no fun at all,” Aoko says.

He sticks out his tongue at her and she does the same right back like she isn’t the more mature person between the two of them. Kaito laughs. “Okay then, if you could have any pet in the world, what would it be?”

“A shiba inu,” Aoko says instantly. “They’re so fluffy and soft and loyal.”

“Should have known you’d say a dog.”

“I’m going to get one someday and we’ll do everything together.”

“…So you want to date a dog one day.”

“Kaito!” She swats at him and Kaito dodges. “Don’t be crude. It’d just be nice to have someone to come home to and always excited to see me…”

Ah. “Okay, that does sound nice.”

“Right?” She smiles. “It’s been a lot less lonely lately, but I still want a dog someday.”

Does she picture a dog and living alone? Or does she have a dream of Kaito—either Kaito—being with her? “Dogs… aren’t that bad. I bet I could train one to do a lot of cool things.”

Aoko grins. “Could a dog do a magic trick?”

“I could definitely think of a way for a dog to help in a magic trick.”

“You’ll have to do that one day,” Aoko says, still super happy, so maybe that was the correct response. And maybe she is thinking that Kaito’s somewhere in this future with her. Aoko holds out a hand and Kaito takes it. To anyone looking it probably looks like an older sister leading around her little brother, but it isn’t that to Kaito and, from the bit of pink in Aoko’s cheeks, it isn’t that to her either.

Aoko’s phone chimes as they’re leaving the pet shop, a text from Hakuba. “Lunch in the food court with the others?” Aoko asks.

“Sounds good.”

They hold hands the whole way there and Kaito doesn’t ask what it means. Someday he will, but not yet.

o*O*o

Kaito has watched Edogawa interact with Mouri Ran for all of fifteen minutes and he’s drawn a few conclusions. 1) Edogawa is definitely in love with her—there were at least two longing looks when she mentioned high school things, and a bit of a blush when she praised Kudo Shinichi. 2) Mouri Ran doesn’t know that Edogawa Conan is Kudo Shinichi. 3) Edogawa is a terrible actor with a paper-thin identity. No one has even questioned that Kaito is related to Edogawa. And that could be because they look almost identical—ugh, another person that looks like him—but really it’s because ‘Conan’ doesn’t talk about much of his life before coming there unless cornered into it and he has to lie on the spot. Which is probably how Kudo Shinichi ended up his cousin. Heck, it’s probably how he picked his name, though it’s just the sort of name a detective geek would come up with.

This is Mouri’s first time meeting ‘Ayato’ so Kaito’s doing his best cheerful-happy-oblivious kid impression the whole time and Edogawa is trying really hard to keep Mouri from interacting with Kaito any more than necessary.

It’s funny.

Kaito should tag along more often when Edogawa’s on his own even if it does mean they’ll probably run into someone dead and-or murderous, and they can’t keep from poking each other literally or metaphorically for more than twenty minutes at most. Case in point… “Wow, it sure is nice that Conan-kun has you for an older sister,” Kaito says. “I wish I had a sister.”

Edogawa flashes a murder glare his way. Mouri looks happy that she’s being called Edogawa’s sister. “Ah, he might not actually be my little brother,” she says, “but it feels like he’s always been in that role sometimes."

“Haha…” Edogawa laughs weakly.

“You know you’re like family,” Mouri says sincerely and Edogawa has something between pain and exhaustion cross his face before it’s twisted into a happy-happy fake smile.

“Ran-nee-chan is the best!” he says in that awful fake chirpy voice. And Mouri doesn’t even notice how weird it sounds. Maybe she’s just used to it.

“Why don’t you two go play before dinner?” Mouri says and Edogawa is only too happy to smile, nod, and drag Kaito away.

“We’ll be downstairs!” he calls. He pulls Kaito outside and halfway down the street before they shuffle into an alley and he frowns in Kaito’s direction. “Why are you even here?”

“Your ‘Nee-chan’ offered me dinner,” Kaito says with an easy grin. “She really wanted to meet your new friend, Conan-kun,” he says putting on an earnest expression. “She wants to know about your life and people in it so much and who am I to keep that from her?”

“You’re just bored,” Edogawa scoffs.

“I mean, that too.” And Aoko and Hakuba were supposed to come over today to work with other Kaito on a project and Kaito knows he’d come home to them sitting together and laughing and getting along great and end up feeling jealous again. Ugh. “So. Ran-nee-chan, hm?”

“Fuck off,” Edogawa growls.

“You get de-aged and you end up at your girlfriend’s house pretending to be your own cousin. That’s a little weird.”

“You’re pretending to be related to your robot brain clone,” Edogawa shoots back.

“Ah yes, the brother I never wanted.” Who could whisk Aoko off her feet at any moment and leave Kaito behind and on some level would have every right to do it because he had all the same memories Kaito did and had spent more time with her and. Kaito stops the thought there. “Seriously though, why her?”

“…Her dad’s a detective, and I need to try and find the people that did this to me. It’s not like I had any other connections that could easily get me in contact with cases on the regular.”

“And you wanted to keep an eye on her.”

“Of course.”

“Dick move though. She’s worried about you and you’re right there.”

Edogawa narrows his eyes. “I’m aware, but it can’t be helped. Besides, you’re Kid—or your robot is. You had to have been lying to friends and family too.”

“Mm, but now we’re not.”

“It’s not safe to know. You shouldn’t even know.”

Circumstance, however, made it impossible not to be in the know. You know, considering the experimental poison that somehow miraculously brought him back from the dead in the shape of a six-year-old. That had kind of needed an explanation.

Kaito sighs and lets the teasing drop for a moment. Edogawa’s always right there with the woman he loves and can’t do anything about it. If she fell in love with someone else he’d just have to smile and play happy-child at her. “Hey. How do you stand it?”

“Stand what?” Edogawa says, still annoyed. “Being a child?”

“No.” They’d already covered that one. There’s not really much they can do about being in the bodies they had. “Being around her.”

“Around Ran?” Edogawa asks. “Why?”

“The lying’s one thing, but… How do you stand not being able to…” Kaito bites his lip. To what, be himself? To be a teenager with her? To not be able to date her like Edogawa clearly wants to—and Mouri definitely would date him if her comments about Shinichi were even a fraction of her emotions. “You’re right there and she’s making friends and doing things and she just sees you as a little brother. How…”

Edogawa gives him a pitying look and Kaito regrets asking. It’s stupid, they’re not actually friends, why did he ask? It’s not like Edogawa’s going to share something that personal anyway.

“Never mind,” Kaito says between gritted teeth.

“Kuroba,” Edogawa says.

“What.”

“It’s pretty awful being stuck as a kid when the woman you love is almost an adult.”

Kaito bites his lip again, listening.

“I keep making her cry and having to pull up excuses and have ‘Conan’ pass along messages and give apologies and I just make things worse. A little brother can’t properly comfort a breaking heart.” Edogawa leans back against the alley all. “But I’m so glad I get to see her because it would be a thousand times worse to not know how she is or what she’s doing.”

“What would you do if she fell in love with someone else?” Kaito asks after a long moment, a little disbelieving that this is happening. Hell, Edogawa doesn’t even like him.

A troubled expression crosses Edogawa’s face. “She almost did. And there’s nothing I could do except try to feel glad that someone was making her smile even as I was making her cry.”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

Of course not. Kaito draws a breath. “The thing is. The thing is, we’re both in love with her? And she loves Kaito. And that’s both of us. But she loves him more because she’s known him longer. He’s put in the effort to fix things after she found out about Kid. And I’m just. I’m just the guy who’d flip her skirt because I couldn’t just say I liked her. We’re both Kaito but.”

Edogawa looks at him and it’s not pity there now, just intent concentration like he’s truly listening.

Kaito can’t look at him. He hates being open. Hates it. But it’s eating him alive and he can’t talk with Aoko or other Kaito or Chikage about this. “I think if I asked, Kaito wouldn’t even do anything about his feelings. And that would be shitty of me. And at the same time I’m just that selfish that I really want to. He probably wants to ask the same thing of me deep down, he’s just too full of dumbass guilt to do it.” Kaito’s hands clench, nails digging into his palms. “I really hate him sometimes.”

There’s still no judgment on Edogawa’s face.

Something in Kaito relaxes slightly. “I don’t want to make her choose but I don’t want to share. So how do you stand it?”

“…I don’t. I play up being a selfish child and interrupt things. I feel horrible whenever I make her cry. I make empty promise after promise.” There’s a humorless smile on his face, a disgust that’s self-directed. “I lie. And I know that someday it’s going to all catch up to me.”

Kaito’s situation might actually be the healthier of the two. Funny. He sighs. “Kaito had a study date tonight and they’re probably going to end up all cuddly at some point and… yeah.” The worst of it is he knows they’d let him join if he wanted. But he’d just feel awkward. He doesn’t fit. He doesn’t fit any of his old life anymore.

“Do you hate him for it?”

“I really want to.” But Kaito hasn’t been able to hate the other Kaito in a while. And he can’t get mad at Aoko or Hakuba for liking other Kaito more. It’s not their fault other Kaito’s apparently better with people than the actual human being Kaito.

“But you don’t.”

“No. Ugh, empathy sucks.”

Edogawa gives a soft huff of laughter. Kaito swats at him without any force behind it.

“Don’t think just because we’re having a sentimental moment that we’re friends,” Kaito grumbles. “You’re just a rival who keeps me entertained.”

“A rival,” Edogawa echoes with an actual smile this time. Is Kaito a joke to people? Is that it?

“I don’t know what Kaito sees in you.”

“Am I friends with him?” Edogawa asks, seeming to mean it.

Kaito side eyes him. “Yeah? Obviously? He gets stupidly excited about coming up with something to challenge you at heists and likes your sense of humor when it’s not aimed toward taking his head off with a soccer ball. Of course he has no taste; he likes _Hakuba_.”

“What’s wrong with Hakuba?” Edogawa asks with a smile that says he has a whole list of reasons someone might dislike Hakuba, he’s just baiting Kaito to talk more.

“He’s time obsessed, overly formal one second and childish the next, he doesn’t know how to react socially half the time, he keeps flirting back to other Kaito,” Kaito lists off on his fingers, “he’s a police nerd and way too obsessed with Holmes—he cosplays him I swear. Uh. He’s kind of a stuck up rich kid with a _housekeeper_ , thinks hawks are better than doves, spends too much time in a lab, can’t even cook, is a complete tea snob—“

“That’s a lot of things,” Edogawa says.

“I can keep going.”

“Also—other Kaito?”

Kaito freezes, realizing his slip. He’s been pretty careful to just call him Kaito, or ‘the robot’ when he’s annoyed with him. “Uh.”

“Is that how you think of him?”

“…How else am I supposed to think of him? I’m still Kaito even if I’m going by Ayato. Just like you’re still Shinichi even if you’re going by Conan. But… It’s been made abundantly clear by everyone including him that we were essentially the same person once. So. He’s the other Kaito, okay?”

Edogawa raises a brow, surprisingly not judgmental. “I didn’t realize you actually had accepted him that much.”

“Because I call him ‘robot’? He is a robot, it’s not an insult.” It is a distancing thing and other Kaito got that. It’s why he called Kaito a brat back. “I said I don’t hate him anymore, I just hate the situation.”

Edogawa hums thoughtfully. “If you got your body back tomorrow, what would you do?”

It feels like a trick question. Kaito side-eyes him. It’s a legitimate question though. Still, he turns it around on Edogawa first. “What would you do?”

“Apologize,” Kudo says immediately. “And probably have to go into hiding since I still haven’t resolved the problem that got me this way.”

“You’d come clean?”

“Not until I was sure it would be safe.”

Fair enough. Edogawa’s guilt apparently is higher than his need for immediate self-preservation though. Slightly concerning. “I don’t know what I’d do,” Kaito finally says. “I can’t just slip into my old life. Not just because of Kaito.”

Edogawa grimaces. “Yeah. I have so much school to catch up with.”

Kaito snorts. “I’m going on two years now. Do you know how annoying that is? I’m supposed to be applying for universities.”

“Same.”

A moment of commiseration then. At least there’s that much they can agree on. “Also I don’t even know everyone that Kaito’s talked to in the last year and a half. I don’t know how he acts in public anymore. We’re not the same person anymore and people would notice. I’d have to… to stage an accident and selective amnesia or something.” He can definitely act, but he wouldn’t want to because it’s supposed to be his life. “…And what if Kaito wants to go to university?”

“Does he?”

“He keeps treating himself as a placeholder. He’s asking me what _I_ want to study. There’s no point in it. I can’t go to university like this even if I wanted to and if he’s learning things that I haven’t in a degree he intends to hand off to me, then it’d be stupid because I wouldn’t know half of what I’m supposed to.” Kaito crosses his arms. “He has my life! He should be grateful and live it properly!”

Edogawa is watching him, head tilted to the side, still not judging him for some reason. Kaito feels like he’d ripped some part of himself out that’s been festering and it feels great and terrible in equal measures.

“I’m tired of feeling angry,” he admits after a long moment of Edogawa waiting patiently for him to continue. “I didn’t used to get angry, not the kind of angry that lasts.” Not beyond being angry about Toichi’s murderers, but even that wasn’t quite the same as this. This is frustration and powerlessness and rage against fate he can’t control. It’s jealousy and longing and sadness all rolled together in explosive form. Kaito wishes he could just go back to being able to pull up a grin and mean it whenever he felt like it.

“This sort of thing changes you,” Edogawa says. “I’m not the same person I was before all this either.”

“Yeah?”

“Barely at all.”

Kaito wonders for a moment what Edogawa was like as Shinichi. He can’t picture it. So much of Edogawa is a clash between his piss poor child act, genuine moments of immaturity, and scary-sharp focus that real kids just don’t have. Before all of this, Kaito’s biggest thing—well, the brief start of Kid’s career aside—was what new prank he could come up with to top his last one and trying to get a rise out of Aoko to stave off boredom. He doesn’t feel like that person at all most of these days.

He sighs. “Well, I guess we’ve both been fucked over by the directions our lives took.”

“Maybe we’ll come out of it better people.”

Kaito eyes him. That is weirdly optimistic for Edogawa who tends to be a bit of a downer in his whole world view. It’s probably all the murders he sees to be honest. “Sure,” he says. “Better.”

“We should head back,” Edogawa says. “Ran’s probably almost done with dinner.”

“Yeah, fine.” He still feels restless and is no closer to figuring out what to do about his emotions than he was before. Blah. C’mon, Edogawa, be a better sounding board. “Heads up, I’m probably going to use you as an excuse to dodge the awkward a lot more in the future.”

“I reserve the right to kick you out if you get too annoying.”

“Eh. Fair.” Eventually he’ll have to confront his problems. It’s a good thing Kaito’s great at dodging things.

o*O*o

Kaito sits on Aoko’s bed with a weird feeling of déjà vu. He used to sit cross legged like this when he was actually around this age, and her room hasn’t changed too much over the years. More stuff, a few more posters of boys, a few less pastel animals tacked on the walls. A few less plush toys. There’s some new books on her book shelf. A few new pieces of jewelry hanging from hooks on the wall. A poster he doesn’t recognize. But it’s Aoko’s room and he’s comfortable there. Even though it means a bit more intimacy with Aoko which his teenaged brain always flails about a bit. The onset of puberty had been a weird time.

Of course the most important thing in the room will always be Aoko herself. She’s arranging the flowers he brought over, adding them to a couple mostly open roses the other Kaito must have given her at a different time.

Their similarities chafe again. They both have the same instinct to give small gifts to cheer Aoko up or just brighten her day. Of course other Kaito acted first. It’s an annoyingly complicated emotion in his gut as usual.

“Hey, you’re planning to go to university right?” Kaito asks as Aoko places a carnation _just so_.

“Yeah! I’m a bit nervous about the exams already, but I think I know what I’m going to go for.”

“What is it?” Kaito half expects her to say something police related. She’s always looked up to her dad after all.

Instead Aoko says, “Nursing,” with a small, happy smile.

“Nursing?”

Aoko nods and joins him on the bed. “I want to help people. And it’s good knowledge to have.”

Kaito feels a flicker of jealousy toward the other Kaito in how her eyes go a bit serious even with their soft, happiness at the moment. He has Hakuba and Haibara looking after him. He doesn’t need Aoko nurse-maiding too. But then he feels stupid because it’s probably not about Kaito at all. It’s probably about Aoko’s mother or any of the things she’s seen on the news or… or who even knows. “You’d be good at it,” Kaito says. And he can see it. She’s really good at being friendly and caring. But she can also be scary and stern when she needs to be, and she’s got a good head in high stress situations.

“Thanks, Kaito,” she says. She gives one of his hands a squeeze and Kaito keeps holding on to it. It’s nice.

“… I know Kaito’s planning on going too,” he ventures after a moment.

“Has he decided what he wants to do yet?” Aoko asks.

“If he has, he hasn’t told me. I told him to just go with something he finds interesting.” At least other Kaito stopped asking what Kaito wanted. Kaito doesn’t know what he’d choose anyway. Something in theater? History? Chemistry? He has too many interests to narrow it down and no real desire to be any one career field.

“Hakuba’s planning to double major in robotics and criminology and minor in chemistry,” Aoko says. “I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to have time.”

Kaito grimaces. Wow. That guy has no subtlety at all. Kaito wonders when the proposal is coming. Well. If they were dating which he’s pretty sure they still aren’t. Somehow. “Does Kaito know what he’s planning?”

Aoko bites her lip, holding back something between a smile and a wince. “No.”

Ooh, Kaito’s going to have to find a way to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. “Has Hakuba even confessed yet?” he wonders.

Aoko breaks into giggles.

“That was a serious question.”

“I know! But!” She muffles her laughs. “He’s so obvious about it!”

“It’s obnoxious.”

“I think it’s cute.”

She also might think Hakuba’s cute from the occasional look he’s seen. Kaito’s not touching that with a stick though.

“I don’t get the appeal,” he says with a sigh.

“You don’t hate him,” she counters.

Kaito thinks of Hakuba’s patience with his phobia and how carefully he moved other Kaito’s limbs through exercises. Yeah, he doesn’t hate him. He actually trusts him more than he should for how long they’ve known each other. He hates to admit it, but he trusts other Kaito’s judgment. “Anyway,” he says. “University. Kind of wish I was going with you guys.”

Aoko presses against him, comforting. “What would you go for?”

“I don’t know.” Kaito looks at his hands. “It’s not like you need to have a degree to be a magician.”

“Hmm.” She’s warm and comfortable and safe. He loves that about Aoko. How he knows her so well even with a year and a half gap between them. How she’ll just sit and listen when it actually matters. When he lets himself be vulnerable.

“At least I used to want to be a magician. I don’t know. Is it a me thing or is it a Kaito thing these days?”

“Can’t it be a both of you kind of thing?” Aoko asks.

Kaito makes a quiet frustrated sound. “Aoko, we’re both Kaito, but what does that even mean anymore? I’m not a teenager running around pranking people with magic acts and I’m not even running around on rooftops in a white suit either. A lot of things I _can’t_ do anymore at this size. And Kaito’s going around and living that life. So. Where does that leave me? I’m living life as Kuroba Ayato, some kid who grew up in Vegas who is too enthusiastic in an obnoxious way.”

“Kaito is Kaito,” Aoko says. “It’s not what you do, it’s who you are.”

She’s missing the point and Kaito frowns at her hoping she gets that she’s really not helping with the ‘Kaito is Kaito’ thing. He appreciates it, really, but that’s something other Kaito probably wants and needs to hear more than Kaito does. Y’know. With his whole self-worth bull crap.

“I don’t feel like myself anymore,” Kaito says finally when she just keeps giving him a stubborn look. “I don’t really want to be Ayato. But I can’t just be me.” He sighs. “I don’t even know what being me means anymore.”

“I think you’re thinking too hard on it,” Aoko says. “Instead of trying to play a role or be who you think you should be, just try to pretend less. Do what feels right. Let Ayato be a bit more like Kaito than Kaito being more like Ayato.”

Kaito isn’t sure he knows what that means either, but…

“If this is your life at the moment,” Aoko says, “you should live it to the fullest even if it’s not the life you wanted or thought you’d have.”

He blinks and almost laughs, bitterly, because isn’t that what he’s bothered about other Kaito? That he’s not living life to the fullest?

“Just live my life,” he echoes.

Aoko gives him a side-hug and Kaito moves with it, shamelessly leaning into her warmth. “Kaito pretends a bit too much,” she says, meaning both Kaitos probably. “Pretending isn’t going to make you happy.”

“We sure can try,” Kaito mutters. Aoko pinches him and he squirms away. “Rude.”

“You’re ignoring my good advice,” Aoko says.

“Stop sounding like a fortune cookie then.”

“Stop needing obvious advice!” she shoots back.

Kaito childishly sticks his tongue out and she does it right back because combined they have the mental age of Kaito’s physical one. He breaks first, snickering against her elbow. “I have no idea how to not act, you know that right?”

“You can figure it out,” Aoko says. “You’re smart when you want to be.”

“Ouch. Only when I want to be?”

“You can also be very dumb.”

“Aoko!” he complains. She lets him flop dramatically against her. He’d enjoy that a bit more if he hadn’t had a flashback of other Kaito doing the exact same thing a week ago.

“Don’t worry about what it means to be Kaito,” Aoko says patting his head. “Just do what feels right.”

Vague. Vague and unhelpful. But it’s coming from Aoko and he loves her so he guesses he’ll try to keep that in mind at least.

“Fine.” Maybe Kaito will try to be a new him. Or maybe he’ll just stop trying. Who knows. At least Aoko will care about him either way. “…Thanks.”

“Just try to find some happiness,” Aoko says. “That’s all we want for you.”

“I’ll try.” Funny how simple things like that are the hardest to manage though. Ugh. Kaito lets Aoko’s hand in his hair soothe him.

o*O*o

The world is out of focus and too bright at the same time; technicolor haze of things that flow through Kaito’s mind like watercolor stains through fingers. He leans over Aoko’s shoulder as she cooks something—the start of nikujaga or maybe curry—admiring her surety with the knife. The way her blunt fingers curl around the handle. The smell of her shampoo and the tickle of her hair against his face. She’s talking but he can’t tell about what, just that she smiles over her shoulder at him, close enough to kiss and his heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest.

And he looks away, down, to the knife and her hands and the flash of silver. Silver and white. White and red. Red staining gloved hands, broad and curled around a silvery scalpel. Silver, the tip of a needle flashing by. Up, up, and it’s not Aoko’s face smiling at him. It’s Kaito’s face, speckled with blood, empty and cruel behind his eyes.

Kaito’s arms won’t move. His legs are frozen—trapped?—as a pristine hand touches his face. _I am you_ , Kaito’s face says, his mouth not moving from the wide, chilling smile. _Do you think they’d notice…?_

He jerks his head to the side. No. No, no, his heart is racing, his _hands won’t move_ and there’s a glint of silver-red, blood-and-metal, a sting of pain in his scalp—

Kaito’s eyes inches from his face. Eye to eye, noses to nose, hand on his face forcing him still, still, looking, _Would anyone miss you at all?_

Kaito _wrenches—_ and hits the ground, arms struggling against cloth and carpet digging into his chin. He turns and—his own face, creased with concern, a hand reaching toward him.

Kaito flinches, breath coming in a ragged gasp. The hand freezes, a flash of hurt crossing the face before it’s tucked away, and Kaito’s… Kaito’s in his own living room on the floor. He fell off the couch and there’s a blanket wrapped awkwardly around his chest and between his legs like he somehow managed to twist it around himself in his sleep.

“You fell asleep on the couch,” other Kaito says quietly. “I probably should have woken you up, but you looked comfortable. Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Kaito says, too sharp, too winded with how his breath still comes a bit too quickly. “I’m fine.”

“…You looked like you were having a dream.”

More like a nightmare. Kaito tugs the blanket off, needing to be free. “Can’t remember,” he lies. “What time is it?”

“Two in the morning.”

Kaito doesn’t ask why other Kaito is awake—they both have terrible sleep patterns when they’re working on something—and other Kaito doesn’t ask why Kaito’s sleeping on the couch in the first place.

Good.

Kaito scrubs at his eyes, exhausted.

That’s the fifth dream this week. Nightmare-dream. He’s had dream-dreams too, but the nightmares almost always start innocently. Why they’re happening now, months after he woke with fresh trauma, instead of those first few weeks he doesn’t know but it’s wearing him down.

“Do you need help getting to your room?” other Kaito offers.

Kaito still can’t look him in the face or he’s going to have a panic attack. He huffs, something adjacent to a laugh wrung from his throat. “No, I’m fine. Just tired.”

From how still and careful other Kaito is about not reaching out again, Kaito knows he’s not fooling anyone. It leaves a prickle of guilt down his spine. He thought he was past this. He knows other Kaito isn’t like the robot he saw before he died. He knows better than to think he’d try to hurt him or any of the other people they both loved.

Knowing something and convincing his subconscious are two different things though.

“Get some more sleep,” other Kaito says, moving aside to give Kaito more than enough room to walk past. “There’s another exciting day of kiddie school tomorrow.”

“Ha ha,” Kaito says, edging away. Other Kaito doesn’t follow. Kaito feels him watching anyway as Kaito retreats to his bedroom. His hand, when he looks down at it, is trembling faintly. Kaito frowns until it stills.

Stupid.

He falls into bed and somehow sleeps, coming awake right before his alarm with a dull impression of panic lingering in the back of his mind like he’d spent the time playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse instead of sleeping another four and half hours.

At breakfast, he can look at other Kaito and joke and laugh with his mom like normal.

At school, he slips into his Ayato role seamlessly and enjoys Edogawa’s irritation.

At home, he does his homework and plays with his doves and researches a possible Kid target. Keeps busy because he prefers it that way.

At night, the nightmares come again.

Kaito wakes at four-something in the morning to the afterimage of a knife carving open gruesomely realistic synthetic skin while his own face made eye contact the whole time. He shudders, holding back sounds, never so glad that he’d long learned to have nightmares in silence. It’s too late to try to force himself to sleep again, and too early for anyone else to be up, even other Kaito who has worse sleeping patterns than Kaito remembers having.

He groans and forces himself out of bed. He’s tired, but closing his eyes again is the last thing he wants to do.

Kaito considers breakfast, opens the fridge to see the strawberry jellies Aoko brought over to share and can only see blood-diluted liquid, a scalpel dipping into the glass, leaving swirls of pink behind. He closes the door.

In the end he leaves a note on the kitchen table and goes for a walk.

It’s still dark out, and cool, a bit of chill seeping into him through his jacket. It’s still a strange feeling how everything is different being six again. The world is so much bigger; the darkness feels like it could swallow him alive. The walls are impossibly high and even though he’s been training, he still isn’t confident he could climb them to the top every time. There’s almost no one on the street, just a few early-morning workers heading to their jobs and a few drunks stumbling home long after the last bar has closed.

Somehow no one stops him despite the fact that a six-year-old has no place in the transitory phase of early morning.

His feet carry him without any direction in mind. He passes markets he’s been to with Aoko for years. Homes of acquaintances. A restaurant he wants to go to, but would be out of place at in his current size.

Kaito pauses below a familiar clock tower. Other Kaito saved it from being demolished, he was told. Because it means something to Kaito and Aoko. Because this is where they first met. If he stops and thinks about the sheer amount of things he’s missed while he was dead… _(An endless void with your worst memories, all your regrets and could-have-beens...)_

Kaito turns away. He can’t be mad at other Kaito for doing exactly what he’d have done to protect Aoko’s happiness. He’s just sad he wasn’t the one to do it.

He walks and walks and walks until the sun is rising and the number of the people on the street rises with it. He doesn’t pay much attention where he goes, or how, letting his feet take him where they would. Kaito walks so far it takes him a moment to realize he’s managed to get all the way to Beika.

Somehow he walked all that way on his short child legs in less than three hours. Kaito glances at the sun. Definitely not past seven yet.

Still, his feet are sore and he’s even more tired than when he started walking. He doesn’t even have a reason to be in Beika; it’s not a school day.

Kaito’s stomach chooses that moment to grumble unhappily. And of course he didn’t take his wallet with him when he left. He scrubs at his eyes a moment before heading toward a route he’s gotten familiar with lately.

Mouri Ran answers the door at his knock. “Ayato-kun?” she says, blinking down at him in surprise. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I went on a walk and decided to visit Conan-kun!” Kaito says with his best charming smile. It’s for the best that his persona is a well-meaning nuisance because Ran doesn’t immediately shoo him off until it’s a more reasonable time of day to visit. Instead she glances over her shoulder.

“…Conan-kun isn’t awake yet, but you can come help me make breakfast until he gets up,” she offers.

Mouri Ran is terribly kind. Kaito’s almost jealous of Edogawa except he’s not because Aoko’s better. Even if she has annoyance-first, listen-second as her go-to responses to Kaito’s drama.

“Thank you Nee-chan!” Kaito chirps, following her in. The Mouri apartment is small and usually a bit cluttered, but it’s homey and lived in. He likes it and likes how Ran has welcomed him into Edogawa’s life like he’s always been there. Actually, everyone has been pretty welcoming since he switched over to Beika. The Shounen Tantei were quick to try and adopt him into their group, and keep trying to make friends. School—while boring—has kind teachers and enthusiastic students. They’re way more patient about little ways Kaito acts out than expected. Edogawa, for all their grumbling back and forth, has never tried to get rid of him at all. And Haibara is terrifying but she takes his and Edogawa’s health seriously. Kaito’s not used to so many people invested in his life. For so long it was him and his mostly-absent mother, Aoko, and sometimes Nakamori-keibu or Momoi Keiko in his life. A lived-in apartment is a lot nicer than an empty house.

Ran gives him rice to wash as she makes dashi for miso soup and slices scallions and mushrooms to add to it. Kaito cracks eggs into a bowl for tamagoyaki and sits on the edge of the counter as Ran makes perfect pale-yellow rolls of omelet. They talk about school and travel while she works and it pushes away the hollow feeling the nightmare left him with.

The rice cooker has just popped when Edogawa stumbles sleepily into the room.

“Conan-kun!” Kaito says, throwing himself at Edogawa enthusiastically. Because he’s Ayato, and Ayato likes his cousin. It also helps that Edogawa hates when Kaito does this.

Edogawa nearly falls over. “What the— What are you doing here?!”

“I went for a walk and decided to visit!”

“He helped make breakfast,” Ran adds.

Edogawa glances at the food she’s dishing out like it might be poison.

“I washed rice and cracked eggs!” Kaito says with the enthusiasm of a child who feels like they’ve been useful. Edogawa’s hilariously relieved. Did he think Kaito’d ruin the food just for the hell of it?

“…Right,” Edogawa says. He takes the tea Ran offers with well-hidden longing in his eyes; Kaito’s seen how much coffee he can drink if he gets his hands on it, and tea just doesn’t match up in caffeine content.

Honestly Kaito could use coffee himself. Tea and breakfast are a start though. He shamelessly accepts the food Ran offers with a bright smile, letting his mouth chatter on about nothing important. He didn’t bring his phone with him. Kaito and his mom are probably starting to worry. Kaito finishes his race and abruptly turns to Edogawa. “Can I borrow your phone?”

“…why?”

“I forgot mine,” Kaito says, “and Kaito-nii-chan is probably wondering when I’ll get back.”

“You didn’t tell them you were coming here?” Ran asks, concerned.

“Ahaha…” Kaito scrubs the back of his hair into further disarray. “I just said I was going on a walk…”

Edogawa sighs and fishes out his phone. “Only send a message,” he warns as he unlocks it. “Mess with my settings and I’ll mess with yours.”

“But that sounds fun!” Kaito says, ignoring Edogawa’s scowl. He snatches the phone and pulls up messages. Other Kaito’s programmed into the contacts, though whether other Kaito put it there or Edogawa asked for the number, Kaito doesn’t know.

_This is Ayato. At Edogawa’s. Don’t worry,_ he sends.

Almost immediately there’s a reply of, _You walked there?? When did you leave?_ Kaito ignores that, giving Edogawa his phone back untampered. Kaito definitely doesn’t notice Ran’s mildly worried glance. Kuroba Ayato isn’t someone who notices that kind of thing after all.

“Ran-nee-chan, Ayato-kun and I are going to go play after breakfast!” Edogawa says. And so Kaito won’t be going back home anytime soon. Kaito volunteers to help with dishes because Edogawa looks like he wants a Talk.

o*O*o

“What are you avoiding this time?” Edogawa asks half an hour later as they sit in Beika Park.

“Who said I’m avoiding anything?” Kaito asks, letting Ayato melt away.

Edogawa raises an eyebrow. Kaito wonders if he got that from Haibara or she started copying it from him because it’s the exact same judgmental tilt, perfectly aligned to make him feel both a bit dumb and guilty.

“I really did just go on a walk. Then I realized I was in Beika and hungry without a wallet or phone…”

“That’s really stupid of you. Also completely rude inviting yourself in for food.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “I didn’t plan it. I just needed to get out of the house.”

“Was the sun even up yet?”

“…No…”

“Take your phone at least next time,” Edogawa says.

“Not going to ask me what I was doing up before dawn?” Kaito asks in the brief silence that follows. He fiddles with one of his lockpick wires, wishing he had cards or coins instead. He’d left everything behind, and cards were too big in his hands to be as soothing as they were as a teenager.

“I can guess,” Edogawa says. “I have my own trouble sleeping.”

“Mm.” Edogawa has his own near-death experiences. Many of them. And so many corpses. “Did you have nightmares right away?” Kaito blurts. He looks at the wire poking from his sleeve instead of Edogawa.

“…No,” Edogawa says slowly. “It took a while to sink in.”

The danger, he means. Funny. The danger has long passed for Kaito, and yet here he is. His lips quirk wryly. For all their similarities, there are a dozen more differences between his situation and Edogawa’s. “Right.”

“…I think there was too much going on to process at first and so it got pushed back,” Edogawa offers. “You too?”

“Mm.” For once Kaito doesn’t want to talk. “It’s really annoying that I keep ending up talking to you about this crap.”

Edogawa snorts. “ _You_ find it annoying?”

“Oh shut up,” Kaito grumbles, elbowing him. He slumps a little on the park bench. “I’m tired,” he confesses. "I can't sleep at all lately.”

“Join the club,” Edogawa says with a sigh.

“Club PTSD issues?” Kaito jokes. “Yay. We should have a banner.”

Edogawa almost laughs. Win. Kaito will take it. Damn he’s tired. “Haibara could probably get you some kind of sleeping medicine that shouldn’t be a problem if the nightmares continue to be bad. Of course you couldn’t take them all the time, but some of the time…”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tempting, but he knows better than to start relying on something like that. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just. Catnap. And sleep when I can.”

“Mm.” Then, “Do you need to talk about it?”

“About…?”

“The nightmares?”

“Do you?” Kaito shoots back, getting an unamused look in return. “Hey, if I’m going to open up, I expect it to be reciprocal.”

“Let’s just say that I have a lot of nightmare fodder, and the people who made me like this have showed up enough since then in reality that them showing up and hurting people in my dreams isn’t much of a stretch."

“Ah.” Kaito prods at the twisted mess of memories and vague recollections of fear that make up his dream/memory. It’s a horrible tangle and hard to tell what is real and what is just conjured from his overactive imagination. “So. I had a concussion at the time I died. So I honestly don’t know what I remember and what I’m making up.”

“It’s mostly centered around the traumatic event?”

“Yes and no. There’s the doctor and there’s knives and blood and needles. And there’s the robot—not Kaito, or probably not Kaito. The other one. The one that had no morals and happily went murder-bot. He looked me in the eye back then and talked about taking my place.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” Nightmares where Aoko never noticed. Nightmares where she dies, nightmares where Kaito’s cut open by the robot. Nightmares where other Kaito didn’t manage to kill it and he died too. But there’s things like Kaito being cut into, seeing skin grafts—and he knows that happened, he’s found scars he didn’t have before—hair follicles, being stripped and catalogued for details like moles and scars and body type. The strange feeling of molds being taken of his fingerprints. These have all shown up in the nightmares in a hazy, vaguely threatening way that fills him with dread and anxiety.

“I think some of the nightmares are memories I can’t consciously access. Ones that were affected by the concussion.”

“…You know I had a concussion the night I shrunk too,” Edogawa says. “I got hit over the head with a baseball bat.”

“Wooden hammer for me I think. Kind of foggy.”

“Yeah.” Edogawa grimaces. “The moment of the change is blindingly clear and I remember most of the day, but I was out of it for a little bit. Honestly I think I should have been worse than I was.”

“Maybe the change actually helped your brain.”

“…Maybe.”

An interesting theory. But Kaito had spent months in a stasis-like state, more or less dead before he recovered. His brain injury had healed on its own at some point, but maybe it was only just managing to throw out bits of what he’d forgotten at him.

“How long can a brain throw nightmares before it gets over itself?”

“I don’t know,” Edogawa says, “but I’ll let you know if I ever find out.”

Kaito laughs. It’s either laugh or have a breakdown, and he’s always chosen the former when he can.

Somewhere nearby someone screams. Edogawa exchanges a tired look with him. As usual, the world doesn’t care about what’s happening in their heads. It just keeps spinning on, and Edogawa’s luck remains terrible.

“You don’t have to come,” Edogawa says, already jogging away.

“I’ll come,” Kaito says. What else is he going to do? Go home? Edogawa is a perfect distraction one way or another. He follows him toward what will surely be more nightmare fodder.

o*O*o

Kaito joins Edogawa and Haibara at Agasa’s home only because he isn’t being forced to get medical tests. Well, and also because it’s less boring than going straight home; the good professor always has something interesting lying around that could be tinkered with. Kaito might hate labs these days, but he can appreciate an interesting invention. He’s not expecting to find Hakuba and other Kaito there.

He stops in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at Hakuba and other Kaito. Edogawa runs into his back.

“Ow. Why did you—oh, back again?” Edogawa says.

“What,” Haibara says swerving around them both, “did you break this time?”

Other Kaito gives them a nonchalant grin. “Who said I broke anything?”

“Hakuba-san is here,” Haibara says. She nods at other Kaito’s hand, Hakuba’s fingers curled around it and pressing into synthetic flesh. “And you might be blasé about displays of affection, but you don’t go around holding hands all the time.”

“You never know, maybe I needed a moment of emotional support.”

“It’s one of the tendon wires in his pinky,” Hakuba says.

Other Kaito sighs, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “You didn’t have to say.”

“Haibara-san is also your doctor,” Hakuba says.

“You’re really broken?” Kaito asks, watching other Kaito curl his fingers and the delay in motion from the pinky. Which… he knew on an intellectual level that other Kaito could break. He’d heard about the surgeries and how other Kaito found out he was a robot in the first place. Has seen the scars. Still, that’s different from actually seeing him in disrepair.

Other Kaito grimaces. “My hands are… finicky. I’m probably lucky I went as long as I did without problems honestly. Fine motor control at the rate I use it added to the kind of hard physical use I do in general equals things wearing down faster.” He nudges Hakuba. “At least it’s not my shoulder this time.”

Hakuba looks less than amused, his lips pursed for a second like he’s holding back some choice words about other Kaito’s shoulder. “This is a far simpler fix,” he says finally.

“Less working with raw nerves too.”

Kaito shudders. The crisscrossing scar there…

“Would you prefer I take care of it now, or later?” Hakuba asks, one hand lightly resting on other Kaito’s forearm.

Other Kaito grimaces again. “Now. We’ll both be busy later and we’re already here.”

Hakuba nods and moves toward the stairs to the lab. Edogawa comes and drags himself onto a kitchen stool next to other Kaito like this is all perfectly normal. Perhaps by this point it is normal to them. The whole definition of normal has been so skewed since Kaito came back, he’s not sure if he’d recognize the old normal anymore. “You’d have less wear on your joints if you retired,” Edogawa says.

Both Kaito and other Kaito roll their eyes at the same time. “Not happening,” other Kaito says.

“Give it a rest,” Kaito adds, forgoing the stool to just sit on the table instead. Haibara gives him an evil eye for it, but it’s way more comfortable than sitting on a too-big stool. “He’s always doing that,” Kaito says to other Kaito.

“Believe me, I know,” other Kaito says. “You know our motives,” he says to Edogawa, flicking the edge of his glasses.

Edogawa waves his hand away. “Knowing doesn’t mean agreeing.”

“Conan-kun,” other Kaito says, “you’re so full of shit sometimes. Like you’ve never done anything illegal in the pursuit of justice.”

“Oh, do tell,” Kaito says, giving Edogawa a wide grin.

“That’s!” Edogawa sputters. “There were extenuating circumstances—”

“Of course the times we worked together and you let me get away technically count as aiding and abetting a criminal in and of themselves, let alone the breaking and entering, occasional trespassing, searching people’s belongings without a warrant. Use of a firearm by a minor… Should I go on?”

“I _have_ to hear these stories,” Kaito says, a savage kind of glee filling him as Edogawa’s face gets redder.

“Repeated drugging of people around you,” other Kaito adds with a contemplative expression.

“Oi! Those things are all so that murderers get caught!”

“But!” other Kaito says cheerfully. “Still illegal! Or morally grey at best. So, you have zero leg to stand on in judging us.”

“Wait, who is he drugging?” Kaito asks.

“Oh, you haven’t been with him when he’s with Mouri Kogoro have you,” other Kaito says.

“No?”

Other Kaito grins. “So. Mouri Kogoro has a bit of a reputation. He’s called ‘Sleeping Kogoro,’ you see, who has these fits of brilliant deduction while in a sleep-like state.”

Kaito looks at Edogawa, who’s glaring a hole in other Kaito, and Haibara, who looks like she’s watching a fun comedy act. “…How the heck has no one noticed…?”

Other Kaito cackles. “You see they have! Or some have, and it’s why the police are really attentive to Conan-kun here even when Mouri is around. And then there’s Hattori Heiji and, what, anyone else?”

Edogawa mumbles something.

“What was that?”

“I said, I don’t know! Most people just think I’m a child prodigy. Hattori’s the only one that had the logic leap of ‘Conan’ being ‘Shinichi’ after figuring out that I’m the detective behind the curtain as far as I can tell.”

“I would pay to see you try not to draw attention,” Kaito says sincerely. He’s so used to Edogawa taking over and people just falling under his spell at crime scenes like it’s normal to have a kid order them around and reveal people’s darkest secrets. The police don’t seem to even think it’s weird, and that’s what’s actually weird about it.

“He’s terrible at it,” Haibara says.

“I’m not that bad!”

Everyone gives him disbelieving stares and Edogawa pouts.

Hakuba comes back in the room with nitrile gloves on. “…Did I miss something?”

“Just teasing Conan-kun,” other Kaito says. He musses Edogawa’s hair enough that he almost looks like Kaito’s clone before hopping off his stool. “Ready?”

Kaito wonders if anyone else can catch the tiny tells of stress in other Kaito or if Kaito only sees them because he shares them. It’s subtle how he keeps his arms just a bit closer to his body, how his eyes fall just a bit under a true smile’s squint, how he places his feet just a bit more carefully. Kaito knows because he’s had the fear and adrenaline surge of facing something unpleasant that makes him aware of every centimeter of his body and his surroundings in drawn out detail.

He knows he shouldn’t follow, but he hops off the table and trails after them anyway, Edogawa’s eyes a brand on his back.

There is a section of counter set aside with two chairs, a lamp, and a small tray of sterilized tools and gauze. A small syringe in there and he looks away quickly.

“This won’t take long,” Hakuba says in a quiet voice meant for other Kaito’s ears only. “You don’t have to pay attention to this one. Would you like a book or—?”

“It’s fine, Hakuba,” other Kaito says. He holds his hand out. “Just do it.”

The trust there is hard to look at. Then impossible as Hakuba reaches for the syringe. He looks back when he hears a clink of it set aside. Other Kaito focuses on Hakuba’s face, not looking down, not talking either and Hakuba still touches him so carefully even as he reaches for a scalpel. Even as he makes an incision and not-blood wells up and—

Kaito has to walk away fast when Hakuba inserts something like tweezers into the wound.

His stomach churns and he still can’t understand how other Kaito can just sit there and let himself be worked on wide awake and aware.

“I couldn’t handle it either,” Edogawa says, of course finding him.

Kaito blinks and realizes he hid himself on top of one of Agasa’s shelves with no memory of getting there. Edogawa looks up at him with more amusement than concern on his face. Kaito frowns at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So you’re just hiding up there because you were a cat in a former life?”

“Maybe I just like high places.”

“Are you that embarrassed about not wanting to see a surgery?”

“No.”

Edogawa stares, unblinking.

“Maybe a little. Shut up.” He hates how anything medical is traumatic now. He should be able to get past it. Mind over matter. He probably could manage better if he were in the mindset of a role, but he wasn’t—isn’t—and annoying as it is, he can’t.

“Are you going to come down?”

“Maybe I’ll just live up here.”

“You’re so over dramatic,” Edogawa says with a sigh.

“I’m just the right amount of dramatic,” Kaito grumbles.

Edogawa rolls his eyes. “You’re missing Agasa’s latest invention,” he says.

Kaito pouts. Damn him baiting him with promises of interesting new technology. Kaito leaps down and lands neatly. He’s getting better at that, getting more accustomed to this body and its limitations. “…Is Hakuba done operating?”

“Not yet. It shouldn’t be long though. I’m pretty sure it really was a quick fix compared to some of the things he’s needed done.”

Bodies wear down; this is true for humans, and it’s doubly true for other Kaito. Kaito’s own body is going to wear down eventually from the hard use he puts it through. He doesn’t want to think about that. In the other room, Agasa is showing off a glove that augments grip strength and Kaito can think of a good dozen ways that would be useful in a heist off the top of his head.

He amuses himself with spouting increasingly absurd ways a grip augmenting glove could be used to break the law to Edogawa’s irritation. He’s on bending the wheel rims of police cars when other Kaito and Hakuba return, other Kaito’s hand splinted at the last two fingers and neatly wrapped in a bandage. Kaito drops Conan-baiting immediately. “All good?”

“It’s fine,” other Kaito says with a lazy wave of his good hand like he wasn’t stressed about the process at all. “Hakuba’s fixed me right up!” He leans against Hakuba with a dramatic mock-swoon.

Hakuba steadies him and pretends other Kaito isn’t practically in his arms. “It was a very minor repair. I did some polymer work, and the new formula should function better than what anchored the tendon before.”

Chemist, surgeon, detective—is Hakuba trying to over achieve much? But other Kaito looks genuinely content to lean against the guy that just cut his hand open, so whatever. Kaito can deal. “Glad to hear it.” Kaito transfers his attention to other Kaito. “So. Grip augmenting glove—ways it would be useful, go.”

“Are we going with legal, illegal, or inappropriate?” other Kaito asks without missing a beat.

Everyone but both Kaitos choke.

Kaito laughs.

o*O*o

There are two Kaitos and Kaito is neither of them, a distant observer. Two identical faces, only one is smiling and the other is not. One is standing. One is strapped to a table. One struggles. One holds a delicate silver scalpel to the edge of the other’s jaw and—

Kaito wakes in a cold sweat, the mental image of blood beading up around a knife blade burned in his mind. ‘ _Just a little cut~!’_ echoes in a sing-song voice that’s not quite Kaito’s own. The red glow of his alarm clock puts it at two fifty-seven in the morning. Dammit. His hands shake and he makes them stop, glaring them into compliance. It’s too early to be awake but there’s too much adrenaline rushing through him to go back to sleep.

With a heavy sigh, Kaito throws back his blankets and crawls out of bed. He’s finally getting used to the drop to the floor and how he needs to reach up instead of out for a doorknob.

The lights are all off, just the faint glow of street lights outside lighting the way to the kitchen. The last time he woke up around this time, Chikage had been sorting papers in the kitchen without a care for the time. No one in this household had a good sleep schedule.

Chikage isn’t here at the moment though. She’d finally decided it was safe to take a short trip. Kaito has mixed feelings about it, will always have mixed feelings, but he isn’t angry. And he isn’t alone here anymore either.

He grabs the step stool Chikage bought him—with good intentions but that he only uses when he’s too tired to climb the counters like the monkey he is—and gets a glass of water. There’s the soft sound of a voice in the dark toward the living room, and for a moment Kaito thinks other Kaito left on the radio or something. But it’s not a radio. When he edges closer, he can make out the sound of other Kaito’s voice, tired and more relaxed than it ever is when he talks with Kaito.

“Of course it’s fine,” other Kaito says in the dark, curled up on the couch, eyes closed and peaceful. “I wouldn’t still be talking if it wasn’t.” A pause. “I started this call now you have to stay on until I’m bored.” A quiet laugh. Kaito feels like he shouldn’t be standing there hiding outside the living room with a glass of water in his hands, but he can’t bring himself to leave either. Something tugs in his gut and he’s not sure if it’s loneliness or jealousy or relief that other Kaito can sound that content. “How long do you think your aunt will…? Ah. … You worry too much. Besides, I can never be lonely when you’re so good about taking my calls, Hakuba.”

Oh. He should have known. The glass presses tight between his fingers, edges digging into his hands. The dark house is swallowing him up, looming impossibly big around him in formless shadows. He feels very small, smaller than this body is.

Kaito shakes the feeling off and steps away before he can eavesdrop more. It’s _fine_ for other Kaito to have friends or… or more than friends, or whatever it is Hakuba is to him. It’s fine even if it were Aoko because it’s not up to Kaito what other people do with their life and he really does want other Kaito to be happy. He’s not mad at him for being happy. He’s just. He’s just a bit lonely and a bit jealous because he isn’t very happy.

The water in his hands is a lot less appealing than it was when he got it. He doesn’t want to waste it though so it ends up coming back with him to his room. His empty, too big room. Kaito would call Aoko and wake her up but she’d be mad at him if he did.

He considers calling Edogawa, but that’d just give him more insight to how fucked up Kaito’s head is and he already knows too much.

Kaito sets the water on this night stand and flops back into bed, right on top of his lumpy, rucked up blankets. It’s _good_ that other Kaito is happy.

But what does Kaito have to do to be happy too?

_Sleep_ , a voice that sound suspiciously like Edogawa at his snarkiest says in his mind. _Sleep would be a good start._ And fuck you too, brain.

If other Kaito’s making an effort toward living life properly, what does Kaito have to do to reach the same? ‘ _Just be Kaito_ ,’ Aoko said so unhelpfully a while ago. Who is Kaito anymore?

Kaito presses his palms to his eyes and lays there long after he hears the soft click of other Kaito’s door open and close down the hall.

o*O*o

“Did you know,” Kaito says as someone walks up behind him, “that they sell penis shaped candy molds? You can tell someone to suck a dick _and then literally hand them one._ It’s such a power move.”

The footsteps hesitate for a half a second before other Kaito says, “You haven’t been sleeping again, have you.”

Kaito lolls his head against the armrest of the couch, looking up at his double. “Nope.” He’s reached the point of exhaustion where he comes out the other end and everything is a little bit more hilarious because of it. “Hey, how red would Hakuba or Edogawa get if we gave them a penis chocolate.”

Other Kaito presses his lips together, trying not to laugh. It’s stupid, he should just laugh. Kaito can tell he wants to anyway. “Coming from your current form, that would be wildly inappropriate.”

“So you can give one to Hakuba,” Kaito says with a shrug. “I should buy it.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

“It’d be funny.”

“Only up until he stops being embarrassed and gets annoyed.”

“…Okay, how red do you think he’d get if he saw you _eating_ one?”

They both tilt their head to the side with the same considering angle. Other Kaito’s cheeks flush slightly but Kaito’s too tired to feel anything remotely like shame or embarrassment. He might even be out of it enough to admit that a flustered Hakuba really isn’t that unattractive after all.

“…Really shouldn’t,” other Kaito says.

“Okay. But consider; making dicks rain like your own personal Kanamara Matsuri.”

Other Kaito can’t stifle the laugh this time. “Oh, that sure is an image.”

“Nakamori-keibu would blow a gasket if it was at a heist,” Kaito says, caught up in a hazy day—night? The sun isn’t up yet right?—dream.

Other Kaito snickers before plucking the laptop off Kaito’s knees. “As fun as that thought is, I think you need to actually sleep.”

“I don’t want to,” Kaito complains. “I want to dream up dick pranks.”

“You know, between the two of us, I would think that’d be more my line of thought,” other Kaito says, amused.

“No, you’re not interested in sex,” Kaito reasons. “So it falls back to me.”

“Aren’t you the one who declared yourself not interested in men?”

“There’s a pranking exception,” Kaito says, not even sure what’s coming out of his mouth anymore. He’s tired but oh, he also wants to go work on something or train his doves or impulse buy inappropriate things online to scandalize people with. You know, whatever happens to be easiest. He inches for the laptop again.

Other Kaito closes it and sets it aside before sweeping Kaito into his arms.

“Hey!”

“Wow, you’re so easy to toss around! I could carry you everywhere.”

“I will find a way to kick out your kneecaps.”

“Good luck, they’re made of metal,” other Kaito says, dangling Kaito over his shoulder. It’s easier to go with it, letting himself be dead weight. “Bed,” he says firmly.

“Kaito, I don’t want to sleeeep,” Kaito whines. He’s so sick of nightmares.

“So help me, I will gas you,” other Kaito says, but it’s still teasing so Kaito’s not too scared he’ll actually do it.

Kaito clings and other Kaito feels so warm and solid and real. Sometimes it feels like they really are siblings. Other Kaito tries to put him in his bed, but it fails because Kaito’s too busy being a koala. Other Kaito sighs.

“You’re being difficult on purpose aren’t you.”

“If I shouldn’t be awake, you shouldn’t either.”

“It’s almost five in the morning, that’s a reasonable time to be awake!”

Kaito frowns. Five is nowhere near a reasonable time of day to be awake.

“I should get ready for the day,” other Kaito says.

Kaito clings tighter. “Stay. Just for a few hours.”

Other Kaito sighs and sits on the bed. “This isn’t a good idea. My face…”

They both know Kaito’s own face stars in too many of Kaito’s nightmares. Waking in a panic to other Kaito would be bad.

Still…

Kaito doesn’t want to be alone and he doesn’t want to sleep alone either at the moment. “Please?”

Other Kaito’s resolve tears like wet paper. “Just for a little bit,” he says, finally getting Kaito to let go enough to make them both more comfortable. He’s a warm mass against Kaito’s side, already better than the vast, empty expanse of Kaito’s bed with him alone in it.

Kaito snuggles closer. Shame is a foreign concept at the moment and the need for touch is high. He’s never liked being alone or having an empty house or being trapped with himself in silence. It’s not silent now. Other Kaito shifts and breathes and hums something under his breath that’s not quite the lullabies their mother used to sing. Closer to a pop song Kaito doesn’t know…

His eyes slide shut.

“How,” he mumbles, “do you think _Aoko_ would react to penis candy?”

Other Kaito laughs. “Neither of us want that explosion.” He smooths a hand through Kaito’s hair, nails finding the thin scars in his hairline and soothing the itch that sometimes lingers there. “Sleep.”

Kaito would protest. Really. But it’s finally comfortable enough to relax.

He sleeps. If he dreams, it isn’t about death or inappropriately shaped lollipops.

o*O*o

Edogawa is trying so hard to appear professional and serious as he wraps up details of his latest case with the police. It looks so ridiculous, like an only man in a child body, that Kaito gets the itchy-finger urge to disrupt him.

“And you found the missing ring, Ayato-kun?” the police officer interviewing him asks, pulling Kaito’s attention back his way.

“Yeah!” he says cheerfully. “The thief wasn’t very smart.” Kaito could have found a dozen better hiding places in a fraction of the time even with his stupid kid body.

“Or maybe Ayato-kun is very bright,” the police officer says with an indulgent smile. He probably has kids or nieces or nephews. Likes children at any rate, and Kaito uses that shamelessly, getting a pat on the head in exchange for a shy-seeming smile. “And then Conan-kun called out the thief, correct?”

“Yes! He’s so good at that.”

The officer smiles again. “I think I have everything I need then, thank you.”

Kaito nods and keeps looking like a child that’s happy to be praised. Edogawa is frowning with a furrow between his eyebrows so deep it’s going to stick like that one day. He’s going to have wrinkles like trenches by the time he’s twenty. He wonders if Edogawa even realizes he does that thing where he looks like a mini adult, if he was like this as Kudo as well and if it was as out of place on a teenager as it is now.

Probably not since every time he catches himself doing it, he plays all ‘oh me, I’m just a little child, not a threat’ with such bad acting Kaito cringes inside.

Edogawa would look a lot more like a real child if he’d just let himself be silly more often.

Kaito really wants to prank him. Kuroba Ayato wouldn’t in front of police. Kuroba Ayato would say something insensitive or be a bit too loud and annoy Edogawa that way. But sometimes Kaito misses causing mass chaos everywhere he goes. The little pranks and disruptions just aren’t enough.

_‘Pretending isn’t going to make you happy,_ ’ Aoko said one of the few times he’s dared voice how he misses his own identity.

He still doesn’t know what is left of himself these days but…

_‘Kaito is Kaito.’_

…Isn’t he the one who gets to choose who Kuroba Ayato is? Doesn’t he get to say what parts to keep and what to let go?

Kaito gives in to the urge. “Conan-kun! You did so good back there!” He bounces over to Edogawa’s side. “Ah, but you look so serious. You caught the bad guy! Saved the day! You should look happier.”

“Ayato-kun,” Edogawa starts, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. And suspicion. A very healthy amount of suspicion because he knows Kaito, both Kaitos.

Kaito grins, nothing at all like Ayato’s controlled, sweet smiles. Edogawa barely has time to be alarmed before Kaito’s wiggling his fingers against his ribs.

Edogawa flails with a squawk that is choked by unwilling laughter. “Ayato—!”

“Stop being serious or I’m going to keep tickling.”

Edogawa tries to dodge, sputtering, but Kaito’s too good at this for him to get away by side stepping. Please, Aoko could run circles around Edogawa in a tickling contest. The only way to win is to fight dirty. The only way to escape is to run. Edogawa seems to realize this five seconds in and flees.

Kaito chases.

It’s kind of hilarious actually. Serious Edogawa running and telling Kaito to knock it off when just a half hour ago he was staring down a criminal unflinchingly. This? Is undignified and childish and so much more like what a child is really like that Kaito feels a thrill of glee. Edogawa tries throwing dirt clumps at him, but he has nothing on Aoko’s level of scary-powerful accuracy.

The police don’t seem to know what to make of the spectacle. Kaito hasn’t felt this much like himself in ages. He laughs, unrestrained and genuinely happy as Edogawa tries hard not to cuss at him.

“Is all of Conan-kun’s family weird?” he hears Ayumi say a bit too loud, but fuck it, he could live with being seen as weird by children and adults alike. He’s lived it most of his life anyway, right?

He runs past Ayumi and taps her on the shoulder. “Tag! You’re it.”

She blinks at him, bewildered, before turning to Mitsuhiko and tagging him. He looks betrayed as Ayumi immediately flees.

Kids, weird or not, are good. They’re so willing to gloss over the traumatic things that seem to happen so often around Edogawa and just embrace being children. The whole post-case wrap up is disrupted by four giggly children and a pissed off Edogawa. Haibara, being above all this indignity, sits on the sidelines and watches the chaos.

As Edogawa finally manages to tackle Kaito, Kaito thinks that maybe, just maybe, he might not hate everything about being Ayato. This, after all, is a lot of fun. He grins at Edogawa. “Conan-kun caught me!” he chirps.

“You are the worst!” Edogawa complains. He’s just upset he’s losing face with the police. Although as if one moment of silly children’s games will upset months of showing he has a sharp mind worthy of respect. At least to the officers that count. Kaito can see one of them, the one that Edogawa usually gives hints to, watching the whole mess with something suspiciously like fondness.

Edogawa has people that care. Cute.

Kaito laughs, only to wince as Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko barrel over to them and join in on piling on top of Kaito. Genta is not light by any means. “Oi, are you trying to smother me?” he asks, not Ayato in the slightest at the moment.

“It looked like fun!” Ayumi says brightly.

Kaito can’t even manage to feel annoyed as he wiggles free. “I’m more fragile than Conan-kun,” he says.

Edogawa snorts, jabbing him with an elbow as he gets free of the pile.

Kaito rubs his ribs. Ow.

“It was good to see Ayato-kun smile and mean it!” Ayumi says. “You should mean it more often!”

Kaito looks at her, wondering what gave him away. She doesn’t even seem to get the deeper implications of any of that, just smiling like she’s glad he’s feeling happier at the moment. It occurs to Kaito that he might actually have made a friend here, whether he meant to or not. “…Sure.”

“His real smile is creepy,” Edogawa grumbles. “He just likes to mess with people and be over dramatic.”

“Eh, you’re calling _me_ dramatic?” Kaito says. “Who was it who just gave a speech and made a thief confess—”

“Stop talking!”

Edogawa makes a spirited effort to suffocate Kaito with both hands across his face.

Kaito licks his palm.

The sheer disgust curling Edogawa’s lip as he yanks his hands away has Kaito giggling hysterically.

“Move back to Vegas,” Edogawa grumps.

“But cousin! You’d be l-lonely without me!” Kaito gets out through his laughter.

“Very weird,” Mitsuhiko sighs, echoing Ayumi’s earlier sentiment.

Kaito can live with weird. Maybe he’ll embrace it. Aoko’s right; Kaito should just be Kaito.

o*O*o

A nose-aching sneeze wrenches its way out of his body. Kaito groans, his throat feeling like fire. He can’t breathe through his nose, his head feels like it’s floating and drowning at the same time, and he might possibly be dying.

“Wow,” other Kaito says, offering a tissue. “I don’t remember the last time you’ve been this sick.”

“Kill me,” Kaito groans. He can’t sleep laying down because he feels like he’s drowning in snot when he does and his stomach is rebelling from the exact same issue.

“How about I get you soup instead?”

“I won’t be able to taste it,” Kaito rasps.

“I’ll put in extra ginger and salt.” Other Kaito pauses. “Salt is good on sore throats right?”

“I think so. Shouldn’t you know?” They had the same childhood memories of Chikage’s spicy-salty soup that supposedly would help clear their cold up, but only ever made them thirstier and their nose run even worse.

“Well we barely ever get sick. When was the last time a cold had us bedridden? Elementary school?”

“Ugh.” True, Kaito’s always been pretty healthy. He usually gets over a cold in a day or two. “Why is it so bad?” he whines.

“Maybe being in a coma for a year and a half messed up your immune system?”

“You can say dead. I was pretty much dead.”

“Fine, dying fucked your health up,” other Kaito says with a roll of his eyes. “…Ai-chan would probably know.”

“No. She’d pull out needles. I don’t want to be sick _and_ have to deal with needles.”

“Fair, but what if there’s something wrong?”

“Maybe I caught a super bug.”

Other Kaito looks anything but convinced. He pats Kaito on the shoulder and tucks the blankets more tightly around his stacked pillow support—if he can’t sleep laying down, he can at least try sleeping sitting up. “I’ll get soup.”

“Please, not Kaa-san’s soup.”

Other Kaito snorts. “Yeah, we can skip the chili flakes.”

Kaito hums an incoherent response and closes his eyes. Ugh. He hates being sick. He forgot how much he hates it. It’s hard to focus, hard to breathe or think or move and he wants to sleep but he’s somehow too drained to sleep which is a stupid contradiction and he hates it.

He misses his mother just a little bit. Her hands would always smooth back sweat-soaked hair and soothe away some of the pain in the way only a parent’s touch could. Kaito blinks and other Kaito is there looking worried with a bowl of soup in one hand, a phone held to his ear with another.

“Mm, no not that high of a temperature, but he’s really out of it. He doesn’t get sick like this,” other Kaito says. Kaito blinks sleepily at him until his body decides he has to sneeze again. Kaito sounds like a cross between a kitten and a squeaky toy when he sneezes at the moment and it’s the worst. “Okay. I’ll pass that on and see what I can do about that.” The phone is tossed somewhere on Kaito’s bed. “So,” other Kaito says. “Want the bad or worse news?”

“Am I actually dying?” Kaito croaks.

“No. No you’re not. But,” other Kaito says stretching the word out, “you might have a worse immune system. Sounds like Edogawa has been somewhat immunocompromised since he became Conan. Looks like it’s affecting you that way too.”

“Why?” Kaito whines.

“She’s not sure why, but it seems that how the toxin works is tied to the immune system.” Other Kaito shrugs.

“…what’s the worse news?”

“…You’re probably going to need more bloodwork because your immune system seemed fine the last few times she took it, so something might have changed. Well, that or you really did have the worst luck and come down with the strongest strain of whatever this is out there.”

Kaito wants to cry. He can’t handle this right now, not when he’s miserable already. “I hate you so much right now that you’re not going to suffer this with me.”

“I could do the bloodwork if you want?”

“No.” He’s whining like an actual child but who cares? Not Kaito.

“…Or not.”

“You don’t get sick anymore,” Kaito says—well, snuffles really. He’s struggling to breathe again. Another tissue helpfully appears before his eyes. He blows his nose. Ew.

“Do I?” other Kaito says with a frown.

“…You don’t have an immune system.”

“But there was that one time—” The frown gets deeper. “…I’m going to have to call Hakuba.”

“Mn.”

“Aoko’s going to come over at dinner time.”

“Mrgh.”

“She’s probably going to make you something just like Kaa-san’s soup.”

Kaito shudders. Spice is not the best cure for a cold, thank you very much.

“Drink your soup.”

Kaito scowls at the bowl shoved into his hands. But then other Kaito runs a hand through Kaito’s hair just like Kaa-san used to and Kaito can’t feel too annoyed. Damn him for being nice.

The broth, when he drinks, is salty enough that it soothes his throat, and mild enough that it doesn’t upset his stomach. He can almost, _almost_ taste the garlic and ginger in it, so it has to have a ton.

The faint flavor lingers in the back of his mouth as sleep drags him under again.

Kaito’s going to be so mad about the immune system thing once he has the energy to be angry again.

He sleeps.

o*O*o

“Congratulations, you’re only a little immune compromised,” Haibara says.

Kaito, still getting over the anxiety of facing needles, is less than amused. “’Only a little’ is still compromised.”

“Yes,” she says, “but you’re not nearly as bad as Kudo.”

“Whoopee,” Kaito grumbles. Hakuba wasn’t here this time. Instead, other Kaito had let Kaito squeeze his hand as hard as he liked as a distraction. Kaito’s pretty sure his hand is more bruised than the robot’s after all of this. “How come you’re not compromised?”

“Oh, I am, I merely am similar to you in that it’s less severe. Different bodies, different base immune systems,” Haibara says, clattering away on the computer keyboard writing who knows what. “You’re, of course, an even more unique case because you technically didn’t get dosed with the same thing Kudo and I did, but a very close copy that worked by sheer chance.”

“Did you get enough blood this time, you scientific vampire?”

“Yes. For now.”

“Lovely, I’m leaving.” He turns to other Kaito who is lingering politely across the room pretending he’s not part of any of this, which is stupid. He’s involved whether he wants to be or not because Kaito says so.

“Rest another day or you’ll regret it,” Haibara calls after him.

Kaito grabs other Kaito by the wrist and pulls him the hell away.

Other Kaito of course notices the slight tremor that’s lingering in his whole body. “Need a hug?” he offers.

“Shut it.” Kaito’s not in the mood for even mostly sincere teasing. “I want to go home and sleep for a week.” Or not. Sleeping would be a literal nightmare if he tried any time in the next few hours.

“How about we go home and have hot chocolate instead?”

Kaito frowns. “I’m sick, wouldn’t tea be better?” Or just water really.

“It’s a reward,” other Kaito says. He ruffles Kaito’s hair as they leave Agasa’s house behind them. “Since you faced your fears so well!”

“Stop sounding patronizing.” Kaito bats ineffectually at other Kaito’s hand.

“Is that a no to hot chocolate?”

“Hell no, of course I want the chocolate.”

Other Kaito laughs at him. Jerk. He also keeps touching him, which Kaito’s absolutely not going to admit is helping.

“…When’s Hakuba getting back?”

“A few weeks. Why?”

“If Haibara needs to play vampire again… he wasn’t so bad at taking blood.” Definitely had the better bedside manner.

“…So you’re warming up to him?” other Kaito teases.

“Well, you like him,” Kaito mutters. And he doesn’t think other Kaito has _that_ bad of taste anymore. Because Edogawa isn’t that bad now that he knows him more and Hakuba is really careful and kind when he’s not being obnoxious. He still hates watching other Kaito and Hakuba be all close and intimate with Aoko though.

Other Kaito glances down at him and there’s fondness there that Kaito doesn’t deserve. He been a jerk a lot to other Kaito much since he’s been resurrected and no matter the circumstances, it’s at least partly thanks to other Kaito he’s alive at all. “You’ve warmed up to me.”

Kaito shrugs. “I don’t hate myself,” he mutters. “You’re still annoying though.”

“Well that’s part of being Kaito,” other Kaito says with the dry humor he’s taken from Hakuba. “It’s mutual.”

Kaito kicks him in the shin. It hurts him more than other Kaito, and only gets him a laugh, but it makes him feel a bit less embarrassed. A win. And when they get back, other Kaito makes two large hot chocolates and they drink them together. Perhaps sometimes not being an only child anymore isn’t so bad.

O*O*o

Kaito gets back late—not unusual with some of the things Edogawa’s group gets into when he’s invited along, though today was actually pretty calm for once—and he barely registers the other pairs of shoes in the genkan. Hakuba and Aoko are over all the time. Kaa-san’s shoes aren’t there but she was going to meet a friend today. No surprise she isn’t back yet.

He’s tired so he doesn’t barge in the house like usual, just drags himself in and kicks off his shoes before dragging himself to the kitchen to hopefully find some sort of leftovers. And he can hear the sound of other Kaito talking in the other room. But again, nothing weird there. Kaito grabs some pre-packaged rice balls someone had bought yesterday and heads toward the living room to at least say hi. He almost walks straight into the room, but at last moment the tone of the voices makes it through his exhausted haze.

“—ldn’t say anything for the longest time, but it’s probably pretty obvious by this point,” other Kaito says, tense and nervous, and that’s what stops Kaito. Other Kaito is rarely nervous about anything that isn’t about the whole robot thing. Any his weird self-worth issues. (Okay, not weird, Kaito gets it a bit too much some days, it’s annoying.) But he’s feeling something pretty strongly right now.

Kaito stops just out of sight of the doorway.

“I like you,” other Kaito says—to Hakuba? To Aoko? “Both of you.” Oh. “And I know that’s not exactly normal but, well, nothing about me is exactly normal these days and—”

Kaito steps back once, again, trying not to hear the rest of that confession, but he still can hear Aoko’s, “Bakaito, did you think we’d turn you down?” loud and clear. And freezes again with an unexpected jolt of hurt. It’s not a surprise. Aoko obviously loves other Kaito and Hakuba’s been involved somehow this whole time in all the cuddle piles and… And…

He can hear other Kaito laugh, a bit choked like he’s fighting tears, and silence and. Are they kissing? Hugging? Did Hakuba give an answer? Are they… are they _all_ …?

There’s a pit of loneliness in his gut and he’s not hungry all of a sudden. One of the rice balls is squished in his hand now, thankfully not out of its package at least. He takes a few breaths as voices come back, soft, mumbled, intimate. Hakuba and Aoko and other Kaito. It’s tempting to take the couple of steps around the corner and interrupt but that’d be a dick move. Who keeps telling other Kaito it’s okay to live his life anyway? Right. Him, original Kaito. This already has his go-ahead in a roundabout way and it’s not like they ever needed him to okay it and.

It hurts.

Kaito returns the rice balls to the fridge. Steps back outside. Blinks back tears and feels as empty as the dark sidewalks.

He should be happy for them. They finally got their weird dynamic out in the open. Other Kaito finally did something that he wanted without looking to Kaito for permission first. They’re good together. It’s not like Kaito’s had the courage to say anything anyway. So. It’s his own fault for. He should be happy for them.

Kaito doesn’t know how long he stands outside before he goes back inside, but by the time he does, he’s getting cold. He can paste a (fake, so very fake) smile on his face and make the noise he usually does and he acts like he didn’t hear anything, finds the others in their usual pile in the living room, maybe a little more rumpled than usual, or maybe he’s just looking for signs. Maybe he’s projecting what he expects to find.

He greets them, like normal, talks a bit, like normal, retreats to his room, like normal. He sits on his bed staring at nothing for another unknown length of time, the smile slipping off his face millimeter by millimeter until it’s a blank mask.

Why is he even surprised at this point?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your reminder that i'll end this happy


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some kidnapping and talk about killing kids in the middle of here but this is the detective conan fandom, so... they get out fine. Kaito finally makes some progress (and of course things end happy)

“Huh.”

Hattori Heiji stares down at Kaito. Kaito stares right back, unsure what to make of him. He’s heard of the detective from three sources: Edogawa, other Kaito, and Hakuba. Only one of those accounts had been positive.

“So you’re the new kid in the group,” Hattori says.

“And you’re the detective from Osaka.” Kaito tilts his head. “Conan-kun’s mentioned you.”

Hattori snorts. “I hope he did. K-Kiddo is a good friend of mine.”

Oh no, another person who couldn’t lie for shit. That was definitely a stumble over Edogawa’s name. “I heard you were more rivals.”

“Is that what he’s telling people?” Hattori puffs up a little. “I mean, yeah, we kinda are. But it’s not all cases and rivalry. K-Conan-kun didn’t say your name; who’re you again?”

“Kuroba Ayato,” Kaito says. The name almost feels normal coming off his tongue these days. “Definitely _not_ a detective.”

Hattori snorts at that. “Oh really? Aren’t you part of the Detective Boys?”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “First, I was dragged into that unwillingly,” more or less, “and second, I’m a magician not a detective. Detectives are just critics.”

“Uh huh.”

See this? This is why Kaito doesn’t like detectives. They just casually dismiss his life’s passion, his father’s whole career like it’s silly parlor tricks instead of intricate, labor-driven feats of ingenuity and often complicated engineering. Kaito eyes Hattori, debating on the best way to get back at him for this dismissal. Pranks, obviously. But what pranks, and how humiliating was he going for?

“Hattori!” Edogawa says, arriving just in time so Hattori didn’t suffer some indignity (yet).

“K-kiddo!” Hattori says with a grin that has teeth. “Just gettin’ to know this brat.”

Edogawa snorts. “He is kind of a brat.”

“Oi.” Which of them’s the brat?

“He doesn’t like detectives much does he?” Hattori says, amused.

“No. I’m not sure he’s met one he doesn’t find annoying yet, but I’m not sure any of the detectives he’s met haven’t found him annoying.”

“I’m not annoying at all!” Kaito says with big, fake puppy eyes that he pulls off way better than Edogawa.

“You stole all my pens and replaced them with empty cartridges last week.”

Kaito tries not to smile remembering the sheer frustration on Edogawa’s face as he tried three pens before going for a good old reliable pencil.

“I use those pens when I’m on a case,” Edogawa grumbles.

“You weren’t on a case when I did it,” Kaito points out.

“You know what my luck is like.”

“Yeah.” Kaito tilts his head, keeping his innocent expression. “So have you put any further thought into having an exorcism done? It might really improve your rate of running into recently murdered people.”

Hattori hides a snicker in his hand. “He has you there,” he says.

Edogawa scowls at both of them. “We can leave now, Hattori.”

“I can’t come along?” Kaito asks with an expectant smile.

“You don’t like detectives, remember?”

“Ah but you’re my favorite cousin,” Kaito says. “That makes up for your flaws.”

Edogawa is going to sprain muscles in his face if he rolls his eyes any harder.

Hattori laughs, then pauses. “Wait, cousin? K-Conan-kun, since when did ya have a cousin? I mean another cousin. Cuz Kudo’s yer cousin…”

Is anyone deceived by this guy? Kaito would love to see how he plays poker.

“Hattori, it’s fine,” Edogawa says. “He knows.”

“He—wait, what do you mean he knows?” Hattori blinks. “He’s not yer actual cousin is he?”

“Hell no,” Kaito says. “I can’t imagine what a family function would be like.”

“I can imagine,” Edogawa mutters.

Kaito rocks on his heels and tosses his little kid act out the window to give Hattori his best Kid-like grin. “Kuroba Ayato,” Kaito says. “Formerly Kuroba Kaito.”

Hattori squints at him, then at Edogawa. “…He’s like you then.”

“More or less?” Edogawa says.

“I’m ‘more or less’ a scientific miracle,” Kaito says with a shrug, “that also got the annoying shrinkage side effect. Being tiny again? Really sucks.”

“It does,” Edogawa agrees.

“How do more people keep happening?” Hattori asks. “I thought ya were a one-in-a-whatever chance.”

“It’s complicated,” Edogawa says.

“I was intentionally shrunk,” Kaito says. “For the record, it’s not a recommended way to try to resurrect the dead.”

Hattori’s sidelong look gets even more uncomfortable. “…I don’t wanna know.”

“I could tell you in excruciating detail what it feels like to have your bones melt.” Kaito adds a cheerful, childish grin on the end just to make Hattori that much more uncomfortable.

“Please don’t.”

“Ayato,” Edogawa says with a sigh. “Please stop.”

Kaito lets it go. If he pushes much further Edogawa really will make him stay behind and Kaito wants to tag along on whatever these two are doing. Even if there’s a chance of running into more dead bodies in the near future. (Why why _why_ are there so many dead bodies??)

“Basically Haibara shrank him to save his life and we’re stuck with him for whoever knows how long,” Edogawa explains.

“…She poisoned him… to save him.”

“I was like, ninety percent dead anyway,” Kaito says like it doesn’t bother him. “Ninety-five? What percentage is it if everything _but_ your brain is dead?”

“I don’t wanna know,” Hattori repeated. “So’re we going, Kudo?”

“Please.”

“Wait!” Kaito clings to Edogawa’s arm shamelessly. “Seriously, take me with you!”

“I have plans! Go bother Haibara!”

“Are you kidding me? She’ll try to corner me for blood samples again. And it’s not like I can go home.”

“Why not?!”

Kaito gives him a look, wiping the cheerful mask away for an honest grimace that Edogawa should be able to understand well enough. “You know why.”

Edogawa wrinkles his nose but he stops trying to shove Kaito off. “You’re going to have to figure out a way to deal with it.”

“I know!” And Kaito’s getting way better but this is an actual date-date not just cuddling over homework. They’re making a meal together and watching a movie and there might be kissing, and Kaito’s chest hurts just thinking about it. It’s great that other Kaito finally felt comfortable enough to say something to them but… He doesn’t know how to stop feeling like this but he’d love to turn that hurt, jealous feeling off. He’s not sure if it’d be better or worse if it was just other Kaito and Aoko either, but adding Hakuba into the mix is painful because Aoko likes him too and that’s one more person that isn’t him that she loves and… Kaito stomps on those emotions mentally because it’s pathetic and it’s not like Aoko isn’t capable of loving more than one person and. And.

A tiny bit of his miserable emotions have to show on his face because Edogawa gives a huge sigh. “Fine.”

“Kudo?” Hattori says, eyebrow raised. He’s gotten something from watching their byplay but Kaito doesn’t know—or want to know really—what potentially incorrect conclusions he’s drawing.

“Ayato’s coming with us since he can’t handle emotions right now.”

“You don’t have to say it like that,” Kaito complains.

“Like what, the truth?”

“Ugh, why are you such a jerk?”

“This jerk is letting you crash his friend outing so stop complaining.”

Kaito huffs. He’ll thank Edogawa later by not including him in the prank on Hattori.

o*O*o

There is a soft feeling against his head, rhythmic, and Kaito swims in a swirl of color and half-formed images. He feels like he’s flying, like the time he tested his father’s hang glider but without the gut-swooping drop. The rhythmic feeling stops and Kaito hums, turns toward it in a bleary half-awake haze. His eyes slit open.

It’s too dark to make out details, but he’d know the outline of this figure anywhere. “Kaa-san?” he mumbles, word clumsy on his tongue.

“Shh,” she says softly. Her hand cards through his hair again. “Go back to sleep, Kai-chan.”

“Early?” he says with a slow blink. He knows she shouldn’t be here yet. She should be in France. Or was it somewhere else in Europe?

“I felt like coming home,” Chikage says. “I missed you.”

This might be a dream. But Kaito hasn’t ever dreamed of something like this. If it is a dream, well, it’s much better than a nightmare. He snuggles closer. “Welcome back.”

“I’m home,” she agrees. He’s drifting, sleep tugging him back into its embrace, but he still hears her murmur, “Looking at you like this is just like…”

And he knows, even half asleep what she means. She means how he was as an actual child. Means how he was before Toichi died, or perhaps even back when he died, both times that she sat at his bedside and petted his hair. Though when he was younger, Toichi had been there too.

The first time she left was a year after Toichi died. Just a day. A single day to start. But it was a day without his mother for a nine-year-old still grieving a year later, and he’d stayed up waiting for her to come back.

He’d woken up to her petting his hair, an apology on her lips, and the bittersweet feeling that this wouldn’t be the last time this happened.

Kaito has mostly forgiven her now. All that matters is that she is here. That her hands are warm and gentle and chase away any bad feelings in him before they can grow into nightmares. What matters is how her touch can still give him that extra push toward sleep.

Kaito lets go, feeling warm and loved.

This night, he doesn’t have a single nightmare at all.

o*O*o

Kaito swings his legs trying to get rid of the extra restless anxiety energy from having blood drawn. Again. Haibara’s like a vampire he swears. “So, how’s in going on that antidote.”

He can practically see Haibara’s head moving with the strength of that eye roll. “Great, there’s two of you now,” she mutters. “No. I don’t have an antidote yet.”

Kaito makes a grumbly noise to himself and flops back on the cold, unforgiving surface of the exam table. Edogawa, having had his blood done first gives a commiserating grimace from one of the work chairs. “Haibara, it’s been ages.”

“It’s been three months and a bit,” she says, unfazed. “That’s barely anything on the scale of scientific work.”

Edogawa sighs. “Three months is nothing. It’s been over a year for me…”

“Yeah, but you at least have gotten to be teen you for a couple days here and there in all that time,” Kaito whines. He’s insanely jealous. He misses having proper reach. And hands big enough to easily palm cards and other objects. And not climbing on things to reach them—ok he still does that as a teen, but it’s by choice not necessity and there’s a difference. “Why can’t I do that?”

“Because your cells still die when I introduce them to possible cures,” Haibara says with a dry tone. “When they stop doing that, then I’ll consider trial testing.”

Kaito sighs before a thought occurs to him. He sits up in a panic. “Wait. The stuff I had in me was holding me in a stasis, right? And that was keeping me from aging. What if because it wasn’t the same thing you guys took it’s still doing that? What if you can’t find a cure and I can’t even grow? What if I’m stuck as a six-year-old child forever?”

“Quit being so dramatic and calm down,” Haibara says, not looking up from her study of Kaito’s latest blood sample. “You’ve grown a centimeter since you woke up, so I can guarantee you’re still growing. That’s another reason why I take so many tests.” A teasing lilt enters her voice. “You’re growing faster than Kudo is. It took him four months to grow half a centimeter and he’s still barely gained any height.”

“Hey, I’m due for a growth spurt!” Edogawa sputters.

Kaito, for his part, breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh. Great. At least I won’t be a pipsqueak forever.” Still, he hopes he has a work-around soon.

o*O*o

The cell isn't much, some basement room with bare cinder block walls, a sturdy wooden door with a latch outside, and a small window up near the bare-board ceiling. The ropes tying them up are laughable, well if Kaito was actually a kid they wouldn't be. But a rope hasn't stopped him in years and he is already working himself free as the Detective Boys look grim and sniffley around him.

"What do we do?" Ayumi asks in a trembly voice. "We don't have our phones and we're locked in..."

"Somebody will miss us soon," Mitsuhiko says. "Agasa-hakase knows we were supposed to be at his house after school."

Edogawa says nothing, probably focusing on the case. They're dealing with another murderer and going from killing a teen to killing the children who witnessed the murder isn't much of a stretch, for all that they're currently held captive. Kaito, for one, would rather not wait for the murderer to act first.

"What should we do, Conan?" Ayumi asks.

Edogawa takes a breath. "We can't do much at the moment beyond trying to get out of these ropes and be ready when they come back."

Really Edogawa? That's the plan? Kaito huffs and finishes cutting through his rope, his wrists falling free. He should just go along with it; Kuroba Ayato isn't someone with hidden skills, but fuck it, Kaito isn't going to sit around and wait to die.

"About that," Kaito says waving a free hand.

"When did you...?" Edogawa mutters as the actual children gasp

"Pretty much as soon as they shut us in here." Kaito holds up the razor blade he'd had hidden in his sleeve. "Who do you think I am, Conan? No one can keep me where I don't want to be."

"But..." Edogawa glances at the kids and an impassive Haibara. 

Kaito shrugs. "Eh, it's fine. I'm tired of playing good anyway." There would be questions later probably. He'd deal with them then. First things... Kaito cuts Edogawa's ropes and gives him the razor. 

"Did you have that the whole time?" Genta blurts.

"Yup. Always good to be prepared." He pulls out a second blade and starts cutting.

"Do you _always_ have those on you?" Mitsuhiko asks.

"More or less." Razor blades, razor cards, lockpicks... whatever he might need at any given time. 

"We can probably reach the window," Edogawa murmurs, looking up. "Genta, if we stand on your shoulders--"

"No need," Kaito cuts in. He estimates the distance to the window, the little padlock holding the latch shut, and how the wall and bare floor board ceiling struts come together. A lockpick slides to the ready at his wrist. 

"You're sure?" Edogawa asks.

Kaito gives him a showy, Kid grin. "A little wall and a flimsy lock are nothing." And they have to get out from there since there isn't a way to open the door from the inside. 

With a roll of his shoulders and a warm up bounce, Kaito throws himself into action. Someone gasps as he climbs the wall and uses momentum to jump and smack the ceiling boards, wedging himself close to the window. Uncomfortable, definitely getting some splinters, but doable.

The lockpick comes into play. The padlock is something he could pick in his sleep.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Genta asks. "Was it from TV or in Hawaii like Conan?"

Kaito could mock Edogawa for a long time with how often he used those as excuses. He snorts, maneuvering the lock free. "No, neither. My dad taught me this stuff before he died."

"Your dad died?" Ayumi asks, horrified.

Hmm, he never mentioned his parents’ situation as Ayato did he? Just a bunch of half-made-up stories.

"...it was a while ago." The window opens, but it takes a solid kick to the frame to do it, Kaito's muscles protesting the action in addition to holding his body up. It doesn't squeak though and he can't hear or see anyone obvious on the other end. "Well. We have an open window." And there is no way Genta is going to fit even if he could climb up here somehow. 

"We can tie all the ropes they used on us together and climb out!" Ayumi says excitedly.

"Not all of us can climb or fit through the window," Haibara points out.

"Oh..."

Kaito gives them a reassuring smile. "Hey, I'll go sneak around and unlock the door and then we can go."

"Or we can just ambush our kidnappers," Edogawa says, back to that dumb plan. Sure he has his knockout dart and a ball and Kaito has knock out gas pellets hidden in his shoes, but it puts them at a disadvantage to be on the defense.

"Or," Kaito says, "I can go and you can prepare here just in case."

"It's dangerous to run off alone," Edogawa says like he wouldn't do the same exact thing if he was the one able to get to the window. 

"Conan," Kaito says pointedly. "These people probably want to kill us."

Edogawa's shoulders droop as he glances at the actual children and Haibara's flinty stare. "Fine. Just be careful and don't get caught."

"Of course I won't. Be back before you can miss me."

His arms are aching like hell as he angles out the window. Kaito squeezes through the gap, hand resting flat to the ground to brace on the other side and hisses as pain shoots through his palm. It takes less than a full second to come out the other side, and by then it is too late to do anything for his hand. Kaito stares at the bits of glass embedded in it with something in between horror and indignation. Was the glass even intentional or were their captors just that sloppy? Either way, Kaito now has a hand full of glass and is bleeding. He tugs a sleeve down over it so it isn't dripping at least.

"Okay?" Edogawa calls from below.

"Fine," Kaito says, unwilling to make them worry. "No one's up here, so I'm going to go find a way to get you out."

"Be. Careful," Edogawa demands.

Kaito ignores him and picks his way toward the next visible window. If he can get inside, he can find the basement, and if he finds the basement, he can unlock the door and get everyone out. If he's lucky, he might also find their phones.

The glass burns and Kaito picks what he can out as he catches sight of an unlatched window. Just a gap to let a bit of air in, or maybe a faulty window, but it's an opening and he can exploit it. There's no sound of people talking, no movement or anything. Maybe they're gone. Maybe they used their murder-covering tools and need more acid or something to dissolve their soon-to-be corpses. Kaito never claimed to understand murderers, and he doesn't understand these ones any better than he did the last half a dozen Edogawa's shit luck has dragged them into. 

It's a run and a painful jump to get to the window and Kaito winces at the streak of blood he leaves behind, but it's inevitable; he needs both hands to properly break and enter, especially when he's this tiny.

The window sticks a bit--nothing here is very well kept--but he gets in. There's worn furniture and a table with a broken leg that's been crudely nailed back on. It looks like someone's home that had seen better times a decade or two ago, not the kind of place murderers linger, but what does Kaito know? They ran into a murderer at a convenience store the other day and another outside a fancy hotel, so clearly murderers can pop up anywhere. Kaito sneaks into the kitchen and wads a paper towel around his injured hand before wrapping that in a strip of threadbare towel. 

There's still no sign of their kidnappers as Kaito uses a mental map of where the basement room is to find the door down. There's a lock in this door and a deadbolt which would be a huge red flag if police saw it. Who deadbolts a basement door? The lock is simple to pick though, and Kaito eases down the stairs on silent feet.

There's voices. Maybe the murderers weren't gone after all. 

Kaito crouches low, hidden by dusty clutter and broken objects. The murderers are arguing, hunched over a card table shoved in a corner by an old wash basin and a leaky faucet with a bare bulb glaringly bright overhead. Kaito inches as close as he dares.

"They're kids," the man who noticed them first earlier says, quiet and earnest. "We can't just kill little kids."

"They're witnesses," his friend--brother? They look similar--says gruffly, just as quiet. "We can't afford to let them go."

"Yeah, but..." The man twists a bit of wire in his hands. No blood on them now, but there was earlier. "A teen--teens run away or get in trouble all the time. Especially problem ones like Matsuda was. But kids... people look for kids."

"Then we have to make them unfindable," the second man says. It's the sort of grim determination that gives Kaito chills because he knows he'd see it through no matter his moral qualms. 

His partner looks sick at the thought. At least one of them felt a little bad. Kaito could use that if he had to. He hoped he wouldn't need to.

"...There's an incinerator out back of Touya's shop. It'd be hot enough even bone fragments would be hard to identify."

Shit. Kaito's heard enough. They'll make a decision soon and he needs to get everyone out before then.

With a churning gut, he inches back the other direction toward where the cinderblock room has to be.

There’s a bar across it, but that’s easy enough to fix, and the locks, again, simple, but Kaito has the same pressing feeling he gets with police breathing down his neck only this is a lot worse. Ok, no, maybe it’s more like that first confrontation with Snake, dread and fury and fear all mingling into a messy cocktail of emotion. The lock falls away and Kaito stretches to open the door.

Then he pauses because what’s keeping the others from attacking him? Kaito hastily knocks shave-and-a-haircut on the door. Someone on the other end knocks back, so Kaito feels safe enough to open it. Haibara’s intense stare is the first thing he sees and he breathes a sigh of relief. The actual children are behind her, huddled to the side, and Edogawa’s dart watch is aimed above Kaito’s head where an adult’s neck would be.

“We need to go,” Kaito whispers. “Now. They’re discussing how to get rid of our bodies.”

“They’re really planning on killing us?” Mitsuhiko asks looking like he’s going to hurl.

“Old news,” Kaito mutters. “C’mon.”

“Wait.” Haibara grabs his arm. “What happened to your hand?”

Kaito tugs it away. “I’m fine, it’s nothing serious, we need to go _now._ ”

“But—” Ayumi starts, only to be cut off by Edogawa.

“Go. Ayato, you lead, I’ll go last.” To cover them, Kaito assumes.

Kaito nods and zips back out the door, ignoring the flurry of whispers behind him as the kids talk anxiously. Haibara shushes them. Good. Six children moving through a crowded, dusty basement is not ideal. Especially when they’re not trained for silence or stealth, but it’s what they’ve got. Maybe Kaito could lob a knock out gas pellet…? He chews his lip as they hurry as quietly as they can.

The men are still talking. Good. Okay. That means they’re not coming to kill them yet. Cool. Great. Stairs. Creaky, awful wooden stairs to climb and two rooms to cross and a door to open and… Kaito really prefers when it’s just him taking risks.

They almost make it out. Almost. But Genta’s shoe catches on a rusty wire and then a pile of things are falling and everything goes to hell.

“Run!” Kaito yells at the children as their kidnappers round the corner.

Edogawa is already in motion, watch up and pointed at the biggest threat, Mr. Definitely Gonna Murder even as the guy comes at him with a pipe. Fuck this. His maybe-brother is a step behind and Kaito uses that hesitance as he grabs the nearest throwable object and lobs it for the guy’s face. It’s a wrench, coincidentally, and the man staggers back, blood dripping from his forehead where it struck. His brother drops like a stone as Edogawa finally manages to hit him with a dart.

Kaito grabs Edogawa and runs, following the trail of the kids to where they’re fumbling the front door open, more paranoid locks having to be undone. Kaito snarls as he gets the last one and slams the door open with all the strength in his stupidly tiny body. Somewhere behind them is a crash, almost like someone’s trying to chase but is being hampered by a concussion. What a damn shame.

They’re in a neighborhood Kaito doesn’t recognize, but it’s pretty clear that any direction is better than staying put. Kaito makes note of the address and street signs and heads for the first place that is public and might have a phone.

“Did you get our cell phones?” Edogawa asks as they run. The children are so so slow in comparison and it’s killing Kaito’s instincts to keep to their pace.

“No. Getting everyone out was more of a priority.”

Edogawa grimaces but doesn’t disagree.

They all clatter into a convenience store and Edogawa heads straight for the desk to borrow their phone. Kaito and Haibara herd the children away from the store windows just in case. Kaito’s heart is still beating too fast, and not in the good way a heist brings about. Jeeze. When did he end up feeling responsible for three small children?

“Ayato-kun,” Ayumi says, “that was amazing back there. Why haven’t you done any of that kind of thing before?”

Kaito winces. He’d more or less thrown away ‘Ayato’ entirely. “I don’t want to draw attention.”

Genta nods understandingly. “So like how Conan-kun is then.” The other children nod in agreement, like this is a universally understood truth about their friend.

“Must be a family thing,” Mitsuhiko says.

Haibara shakes her head before grabbing Kaito’s hand.

“Ow!”

“It’s nothing, is it?” she says.

“Ok, it’s something, but don’t just grab it.” It’s probably bleeding again. Actually, it’s definitely still bleeding. There’s blood staining through his emergency bandage attempt.

“What happened?” Ayumi asks doing that same hovering thing she does to Edogawa when she’s worried about him.

“Just some broken glass. Didn’t see it when I climbed out the window.”

“Is any still in the cuts?”

“I dunno, it’s not like I had time to check—ow! Don’t prod it! At least wait until we have actual medical supplies!”

“Hmm.”

“Yeesh.” Kaito yanks his throbbing hand back.

“You did good back there,” Haibara says.

“Of course I did,” Kaito huffs. “I’m great at getting into places I’m not supposed to be.”

“Don’t be smug.”

Kaito isn’t, really, but it’s easier to show that than to show how shaken he is, even if the ‘Ayato’ thing to do would be playing that vulnerability up. He needs to feel steadier and falling into years’ worth of behavioral patterns is a bigger comfort than playing a role. He sticks his tongue out at her.

“The police are on their way,” Edogawa says, coming over to them.

“Lovely.” Kaito sighs and lets go of a bit of the tension thrumming through him.

“About time you were useful on a case,” Edogawa says trying to lighten the mood.

Kaito elbows him. “Shut up, I’m always useful.”

“Yeah, real great at looking sick in the corner.”

“Oi, bodies are traumatizing, just because you and everyone else around is desensitized doesn’t actually make it less traumatic.”

“Uh huh.”

“We’re all going to need so much therapy in ten years.”

“Not now?” Haibara jokes.

“Oh no, we definitely already need it.”

The kids watch the byplay with a familiarity of not quite being in the loop with their other friends. Kaito’s definitely made himself a firm ‘other’ with Haibara and Edogawa today. But… They’re still huddled close and Ayumi still keeps looking at Kaito’s hand with worry and Genta’s starting to warm up to the exciting points now that immediate danger doesn’t seem to be happening anymore, prodding Kaito about how he ran up the wall like that earlier.

Kaito’s been showing more and more of his real self lately and it still hasn’t scared these kids away.

Maybe he really can make friends and be himself even in this child body.

There’s a brief moment where Edogawa catches his eye and seems to understand what Kaito’s feeling completely even though he couldn’t possibly know what’s going on in Kaito’s head. Still. As the police arrive, Kaito feels strangely light even with all the horrible things that have happened in the last few hours.

o*O*o

Kaito takes a breath and lets it out slowly. It’s fine. It’s just a conversation. He can… Have an honest, open conversation. He’s definitely capable of it even if it does make him feel like his skin is itching and he needs to run for the hills. Yes. Definitely.

Aoko takes the seat across from him.

Yeah, Kaito can’t do this.

Aoko waits patiently for all of half a minute before she prods him along. “You wanted to talk?”

Kaito looks at her hands in her lap and the ink stain on her finger. He looks at the empty coffee table that he should have gotten tea to put on. He looks at the knit throw across the back of Aoko’s couch, but he can’t look her in the eye. “Aoko,” he starts. Stops.

He’s walked in on other Kaito and Aoko sprawled across that couch laughing and Hakuba sitting where Kaito is, looking like he’s trying really hard not to smile. He’s seen them all piled on that couch with popcorn and watching a movie on other Kaito’s laptop. He’s seen other Kaito casually press a kiss to Aoko’s hair as she does her homework before he goes to get something from another room.

Those are all things Kaito doesn’t have. He wants them. He wants piles on a couch with Aoko, the giggling over random things, the casual touching and affection.

He doesn’t know if he can ever have them with her, not truly. And not if she’s already with other Kaito and Hakuba. Where does Kaito fit in this? What can she possibly want or need from him that they don’t already provide?

“Aoko,” he tries again, throat feeling tight.

“Kaito,” she parrots when his voice chokes off again. The way that she’s looking at him, she _knows_. She definitely knows what he wants to talk about. She’s going to make him say the words out loud too.

Dammit. “Aoko, I like you.” Be blunt. Be blunt and direct and honest even if it makes him want to throw up for how much he’s stripping his heart bare. If other Kaito can manage this, so can Kaito dammit. Kaito swallows around his tension. “Love you,” he chokes out. “Have for…” How long? So very long. “Since we were little maybe. Definitely since middle school.” And he’d been awful then, teasing her mercilessly until he’s really surprised she stayed friends with him because he was an ass and hadn’t known what to do with all the emotions, just known that he wanted her to look at him always. “And I know you’re. You’re dating Kaito and Hakuba.”

“Kaito—”

“Let me finish, I don’t know if I have the nerve to try and talk through this twice.” He focuses on her ear, the curl of hair against her neck because it’s intimate but it’s not looking at her expression, not seeing her react to it all. Kaito’s heart pounds and his hands are starting to sweat. “I know you love them and plan to keep dating them. I’m. I’m happy that they make you happy—” because he was happy, really he was, he wasn’t that much of an ass to wish she wasn’t happy just because it made his heart clench whenever he saw them happy together “—and I hope I never make you uncomfortable about that but. I want to know. Can we? Are we…?”

Why is this so hard? He is Kuroba Kaito, man of as many faces as needed, heir to the mantle of Kaitou Kid and Phantom Lady and he shouldn’t be defeated by something as mundane as romantic feelings and anxiety. “I have to know if you can love me back like you do them. Because if you do, I want to try and make this work. I want… I want to date you and curl up on couches and all that gooshy romantic stuff that I know I make fun of but I don’t actually hate.” He closes his eyes because even the sight of her weight shifting forward is too much. “I know I’m like this, and I know I have my issues with jealousy and I know that I’m weird about other Kaito with you but I want to try if you’re willing because I think…I think I can get past it all if I know there’s a place for me in your heart too.”

A beat of silence, no indication of what Aoko’s thinking, god did he make a mistake?

“Or you can tell me no, it’s never going to work and I can try to move on or something.”

“Kaito,” Aoko’s voice says from way too close.

Kaito flinches and opens his eyes to see her crouching in front of him. There isn’t any of the frustration or pity he feared to find in her eyes. There’s a bit of sadness, but he doesn’t think it’s because she’s going to reject him. Not with the amount of care that far outweighs that sadness.

“Kaito,” Aoko says again, reaching out to set a hand on his knee. Her hand is so big compared to this body that it makes him hate being stuck this size all over again. He wants to cover her hand with a hand large enough to hold all of it. Instead it’s like trying to cover a book with a single post-it note; too small to even properly fit around it. “Of course I love you,” she says. “Of course I want that. I thought that I was being clear about that. We’ve been going places together and spending time just the two of us.”

“But that’s pretty much what we’ve always done as friends,” Kaito says. He takes her hand in two of his, her fingers soft and scarless unlike his own. “Is it because I’m small? Does it weird you out? Because I’m still the same Kaito in here. I don’t feel like a child even if I look like on right now.” He has wants and thoughts and insecurities that no child has. He still feels everything he did as a teenager. Everything. Hormones don’t seem to match with his current physical age at all sometimes.

Aoko grips back, careful like he’s something breakable instead of just Kaito. Kaito who she’s swatted and chased with mops and tackled over the years. “It is a little weird, but only on the physical side,” she admits. “I’m not trying to treat you like I care less than Kaito… It’s just… easier to fall into things there that we haven’t built up yet.”

The time he was dead strikes again. Kaito feels a lurch in his gut.

Aoko searches his face and Kaito can imagine what she sees. He’s not trying to hide right now. His anxiety and feelings of inadequacy are on clear display. It’s like he’s been stripped to his basest self, and that self will always be one that loves Aoko at its core. Grass is green, the sky is blue, Kaito loves Aoko. “You’ve never initiated anything,” she says after a moment. “I thought you were okay with holding hands. Even there it was me reaching out first.”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Kaito wants. He wants to hold her, to be held. He wants to be kissed. He wants to hold hands and spend hours pressed against her side. There’s a hunger for contact, for intimacy that he isn’t getting and keeps seeing other Kaito get instead. Most of all he wants to feel loved and feel like she means it.

Aoko pulls him into a hug. It’s abrupt enough that Kaito slides from the chair into her lap and he’s frozen for a half a second before he clings with his whole being. She’s warm and all around him and smelling good and it’s everything he needs in this moment.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Aoko says. “You’re Kaito. Kaito is Kaito is Kaito and I love Kaito. Both Kaitos. That hasn’t changed. It won’t change.”

“But if you have him… If you have Hakuba too, why would you need me?”

“Dummy,” Aoko says. “Just because there’s two Kaito now doesn’t mean you’ve replaced each other. It just means I have more Kaitos to love.” She holds him tighter, tight enough it’s a little uncomfortable but he wouldn’t change it for the world. “I’d miss you if you were gone tomorrow. I want to date you too.”

“Oh.” Relief floods his body. Kaito goes boneless against her. “…would kissing be too weird?”

In answer, Aoko pulls back enough to kiss him lightly on the lips.

It’s awkward, the angle not quite right, and yeah, her mouth is definitely bigger. It’s not even Kaito’s first kiss, but it is the first time he’s really meant a kiss, and that makes all the difference. The moment stretches into something impossibly long and precious.

Aoko sits back. “A little weird, but we can keep trying.”

“Yeah.” Ah, that came out too breathless. How embarrassing. Kaito clears his throat. “Yeah. Please.” He kisses her this time. It’s a bit better. It would be perfect if he was his real age.

“We can have dates,” Aoko says. “We can make time and do things together, friend and date things, and we can make it work.” She sounds so sure.

Kaito believes her. How can he not when he wants this to work so badly? “Okay. Okay, I want that. I want to make this work.”

“It will work,” Aoko says. “If it’s having speed bumps, we can all talk at each other until we figure out how to make it work better.”

“And Hakuba? Kaito? Would… is this just okay with them?”

Aoko sits back and gives Kaito’s shoulder a little shake. “Kaito. It’s been okay with them. They already know we care about each other.”

“Okay, but knowing and doing are different things and—” A finger on his lips cuts him off.

“We’ll figure it out if they end up feeling weird about it. But I don’t think they will. It’s not as big of a change as you’re making it out to be, Bakaito.”

But it _is_ a big change! Kaito wants to protest but he can tell Aoko’s not going to hear it. Still, her complete belief that it isn’t going to be a problem helps curb the worst of his remaining anxiety. “Ugh.” He sighs and presses his face against her shoulder. “I wasn’t even dead two years, how are you being so much more mature and crap about this?”

“Practice,” Aoko says with a giggle. When he glances up, she’s smiling all soft and fond and gooey romantic at him just like she does at other Kaito. He’s wanted her to look at him like that for months. “It’s not like I ended up dating two people on accident. You do have to talk about this kind of thing.”

“Talking’s overrated.”

“We’re talking right now!”

“Yup.” He could sit here like this for hours just. Just leaning against her. “…I want to believe I can have this,” he admits.

“You can. And if you keep having trouble, I’ll just have to keep reminding you that you’re wanted.”

Kaito smiles. “Hey Aoko?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it too weird if I want to cuddle for like the next hour or whenever?”

“No, that’s not weird at all.” Aoko’s fingers card through his hair and he relaxes against her even more. That hungry, jealous, needy part of him is starting to un-knot.

“Thanks.”

Aoko holds him and Kaito stays curled in her arms.

o*O*o

Kaito plays his first big prank as Ayato four months into running around with Edogawa and the Shounen Tantei. On the scale of his pranks in his time as Kaito, it’s still on the low end. A couple glitter bombs strategically placed to target some older kids that pushed Mitsuhiko around a few times and some carefully placed glue... Simple, targeted, mostly harmless, but embarrassing and impossible to remove all the mess from them.

Did they know Kaito pranked them? No. Was it satisfying to watch a ten-year-old choke on a faceful of biodegradable, extra-sparkly rainbow glitter? Yes. Yes it was very satisfying and it has Kaito’s fingers itching to do more pranks like that. It’s not like those kids were the only bullies around and it’s ever so nice to see a bully get a bit of their own humiliation tactics thrown in their face. Kaito’s not sure if it’s the ethical way of handling things. Edogawa would definitely try to get him to talk to a teacher and the Shounen Tantei would probably try to lecture the kids, but Kaito likes this kind of rogue vigilante justice even if it is probably really bad considering he’s a seventeen-year-old and they’re all elementary students.

…He’s definitely going to have to be at least a little circumspect of Edogawa’s going to chew him out every time, huh?

Kaito has plans for other pranks, less justice driven, and more playful, like he used to do in school. The usual pranks to play on Edogawa, pranks to play on Hakuba and other Kaito. Magic tricks for his classmates and harmless, silly pranks for the Shounen Tantei. Pranks that make him feel alive again and wholly himself instead of constantly role-playing. He’s slowly phasing out the mask of Ayato except for where it’s useful.

Pretending to be a relatively normal, edge-of-annoying kid is too uncomfortable even with using it to mess with Edogawa. Everyone is right that he should be himself. Kaito’s still figuring out who that self is now after everything that’s happened. Reclaiming this part of himself feels right.

Kaito sits in Kid’s workshop—his dad’s workshop—and makes more glitter bombs. It’s a certain sort of funny to be making prank tools in the middle of a thief equivalent of the Batcave, but it feels right to use the space. He never really got to before.

There’s all these little signs of other Kaito here, half-written plans and odds and ends of unfinished gadgets. Percentages on sleeping gas ingredients and a dissected stun gun that Kaito can’t tell if other Kaito gave up modifying or if he just decided to destroy the thing. There’s a mug with long cold tea leaving rings on a sketch pad and scribbled lines for riddles. The room is lived in and that makes it comfortable. More comfortable than Kaito’s bedroom which had felt like entering a stranger’s room that first week back except the stranger is an older you that you can barely recognize except for all the ways you uncomfortably can. This though, this is things that other Kaito has made his more than ever belonged to Kaito, and it’s a space that he never had a chance to get to know so doesn’t feel weird. Sometimes Kaito comes and helps other Kaito with heists here, but lately it’s a lot more spending time here on his own for little things.

It’s good. It’s carving out a tiny spot in his father’s legacy that’s still his.

Above, the trap door switches and there’s the muffled sound of footsteps in sock-feet. Kaito gives a sharp wave, not looking up from carefully measuring glitter into the rigged canisters.

“Ooh, glitter bombs,” other Kaito says. “I haven’t used those in ages. I should use those again. At a heist. Picture Nakamori-keibu sparkly and looking ready to explode.”

Kaito snorts. “But think of the poor curators who’d have to clean that out of the museum.”

“Boo, you’re being sensible. Meh, obviously I have to pick the best location for least collateral damage.” Other Kaito draws up the spare chair. “So, what are you making them for?”

“Revenge-pranking grade schoolers.”

“Aren’t you a little old to angry-prank people a step above toddlers?”

Kaito pretends to consider it for a moment. “Mmm… No. Not at all. There are jerks even among children, you know.”

“Well yeah.” Other Kaito leans against one hand. “Hey.”

“Hey what?” Kaito says. He seals up the glitter bomb. One down, about eleven to go.

“You look happier lately. Are you?”

Kaito pauses. He blinks at his doppelganger, not expecting that level of bluntness. They still mostly talk around the important things. “I… guess a little, yeah. I’m… getting used to it.” No, that’s not right. He sets down the bottle of glitter. “I’m. Making it my own?”

“Mm.” Other Kaito hums like he understands exactly what Kaito means by that.

Maybe he does. Maybe some of those little differences Kaito’s noticed between them were ways of assuring that this is his life now, original Kaito or not. Other Kaito could have gone off the deep end and rejected everything a bit like how Kaito tried with a lot of his Ayato persona. But neither of them could live an act that went so far from who they are. There’s a reason his daily masks in life are just exaggerated aspects of what he already is. They fit better, chafe less.

“I don’t hate all of it,” Kaito says, twiddling a bit of wire between his finger where it coils out of the guts of one of other Kaito’s experiments. “Edogawa’s fun to mess with, and it’s certainly not boring around him. Could do with less corpses.” Other Kaito snorts, but doesn’t interject, listening with a patience Kaito is not sure he’d ever manage if their positions were reversed. One more difference between them. “The kids are both annoying and great. I think I could be actual friends with them someday. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Without masks?”

“Eh, maybe that’s pushing it.” Heck if he ever tells the kids he’s actually a decade older than them they’ll probably flip out. Maybe not the kind of friends he could be soul-baringly open with. But more than casual acquaintances like people from high school. It’s hard to be closed off and not grow to like someone when they’re all so stubbornly friendly. He already cares and it’s only going to get worse. Eh, if they ever get their bodies back, he’ll tell them. At this point he’d miss their random associative thinking and being pestered into games with them. If only he could have all that without the boring hell of elementary school.

“And things are good with Aoko?”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “Why are you asking when you already know.”

“I know her side, I want to know how you feel.”

“Maybe I want to keep how I feel private,” Kaito grumbles back. “You tell me how _you_ feel about the whole thing.”

“Hmm, still a little worried about her choosing you,” other Kaito says with too much honesty. Lie, for frick’s sake. Bluster, don’t bare your soul! “But I’m putting stock in Aoko knowing what Aoko wants and she wouldn’t jerk us around. If she says she likes us both as Kaito and our own separate people all at once, I have to believe her even if it feels impossible.”

With a grimace, Kaito mutters a soft, “Same.” The bit of wire snaps and he tosses the end of it into the mess of projects to get swallowed by oblivion, or at least for however long it took to next clean. “Is there a point to bringing up serious topics out of the blue?”

“This is me checking up on you,” other Kaito says. “Since I’m the ‘older’ one between us.”

“Hell no, you’re not even half my actual age.”

“Mentally older.”

Kaito tosses glitter in other Kaito’s smug, smirking face.

“Rude.”

“If I’m younger, I get to be petty.”

Other Kaito laughs. It’s not bad, this give and take. Maybe one day he’ll stop thinking about it entirely.

“Hey,” Kaito says, turning back to his glitter bombs. “Do you ever still wonder what it means to be, well, to be Kaito?” _To be me, to be alive._

“All the time,” other Kaito says. “I probably will always question it, given what I am.”

“Mm.” Fair enough. “I’ve been wondering what made me me lately.” Partly because of Aoko. Partly because he keeps having to redefine himself in new situation after situation.

“Come to any conclusions?”

“Not exactly.” His fingers craft glitter bomb after glitter bomb as the words hand in the air between them, fully of a drawn-out moment. “I think… I’m getting a bit closer though. And this is the first step.”

“Glitter bombs.”

“Glitter bombs,” Kaito agrees. “Or more pranks at any rate. I want to feel like me again, whatever that means. I want to be Kaito even if I’m stuck as Ayato.”

Other Kaito smiles and smiles.

“Stop making that expression.”

“But it’s good, you’re maturing, it’s cute!”

“I will glitter bomb your whole closet.”

“I can pull off sparkles,” other Kaito teases. He finishes up the last glitter bomb, his fingers just the tiniest bit different in their motions than Kaito’s own. “…And I think I’ll try to be my own Kaito too. Instead of spending so much time wondering what you’d do.”

“Good.”

o*O*o

You’d think with Edogawa running around people would think to look _down._ Fortunately for Kaito, they’re hopeless. He’s taken out at least a dozen officers using discreet tripwires alone and they’ve yet to catch on that he’s even there. Nakamori is cursing Kid’s name and Kaito feels the most alive he has since he came back from the dead.

“Don’t just stand there!” Nakamori yells at an officer that just got one of Kaito’s slime traps to the face. “Go after Kid!”

Kaito sneaks in the shadows and releases another decoy. Ah, the lovely sounds of absolute chaos. He’s missed this. There’s something so rewarding about seeing plans unfold in the best of mildly destructive ways.

There, in the crowd, is Edogawa making a sprint for one of Kid’s possible escape routes—the most likely one for Kid to actually take, using the chaos as cover for his disguise. Kaito trips a few more traps before ghosting after him. He did a close walkthrough of this place with other Kaito the week before the heist so he knows just where to go to catch up to Edogawa fastest.

Edogawa, it turns out, also forgets to look for threats at child height. Kaito takes no small amount of glee in tackling him the second they’re in a place that’s not going to be immediately swarmed with officers.

“Shit!” Edogawa says, tumbling along the ground with the full force of Kaito’s weight thrown into the tackle.

Kaito comes out on top of him, grinning so hard his face hurts. “Well hello, fancy seeing you here.”

“Ayato,” Edogawa grunts, not the least bit happy to see him. Though that might be in part because he’s now bruised and battered. “What are you doing here?”

“Guess.”

“You’re helping on a heist? Really?”

“I’ve been helping plan for weeks now,” Kaito says.

“You really shouldn’t be confessing like this,” Edogawa says twisting under him to try and break free.

Edogawa’s squirming is nothing compared to what Kaito’s capable of. Kaito grins. “Ah, I seem to have caught myself a detective.”

“Fuck you,” Edogawa says and goes for his watch.

So predictable. Kaito lets go and dodges, laughing. Edogawa gives him a look like he doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that they’re the same size. Must be a novel experience after months of facing down people twice his size or more.

“Are you trying to get a criminal record in elementary school?” Edogawa asks.

“One, who would arrest a six-year-old? Two, you’re certainly not going to arrest me. Three…” Kaito tilts his head listening to Nakamori’s distant bellows. “I’m just a kid who snuck into a crime scene to see Kid!” He puts on his best enthusiastic-fanboy-child face. “He’s just so cool!”

Edogawa glowers.

“Four, Kid’s already escaped,” Kaito says cheerfully.

“I can get you banned from ever getting past the police line,” Edogawa says.

“You really think that would stop me?” Kaito snorts. “Besides, aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be grounded right now?”

“You…” Edogawa’s eyes narrow. It’s entirely Kaito’s fault that he’s grounded too. This school hasn’t given up on correcting class disturbances yet. If things keep progressing like Kaito hopes they will, they’ll have given up by the end of the school year. Of course he’s not going to let things get too distracting. He’s not going to sabotage the education of a bunch of impressionable children. “How aren’t you grounded?” Edogawa grumbles.

“You think my mom cares about the school calling home? Been there, done that for at least half my school life. There’s no controlling me when I’m bored and she knows it. What good would grounding me do?”

“This explains so much about your personality,” Edogawa says.

“Like you have half as much supervision as a trouble magnet like you should,” Kaito counters.

Edogawa sighs, but he stops aiming his watch at Kaito. “He’s really already gone?”

“Yup.” Kaito crosses his arms behind his head. “You were a minute and a half too late running down this hall. Better luck next time.”

Edogawa rolls his eyes. “Are you going to be at all the heists from now on?”

“Maybe,” Kaito says. “Maybe not.” This was fun and he still has to sneak back out again. “Maybe I’ll show up just so you—”

“Edogawa-kun, Ayato-kun,” Hakuba Saguru’s voice says from around the corner. “It might be best to vacate the premises before Nakamori-keibu notices that either of you are here.”

Kaito pouts as Hakuba rounds the corner looking way too put together. “I thought we left you in a closet."

Hakuba raises an eyebrow. “You’ll find I’ve gained some skill at getting out of captive situations.”

“Ooh, have you picked up lock picking and escape tricks? How very un-detective-like of you,” Kaito jokes. He still doesn’t really see what the other Kaito sees in Hakuba honestly, but he’s kind of fun to mess with from time to time.

“A skill is a skill,” Hakuba says primly. He glances past Kaito at Edogawa. “I believe I saw the professor’s car lingering across the street?”

Edogawa looks between Kaito and Hakuba before clearly giving up for the moment. “Thanks, Hakuba-san. You,” he says to Kaito, “had better not cause any more trouble tonight.”

Kaito sticks out his tongue at his back as he leaves. “Ugh, I should have tackled him more than once,” Kaito grumbles.

Hakuba makes a small snort of laughter that Kaito almost thinks he’s imagining. But no, there’s the hint of a smile on Hakuba’s face. “There were no complications?” he asks.

“Not that I saw.” Kaito scrubs a hand through his perpetually messy hair. “Should probably go find Kaito though. You good staying behind?”

“It is part of my job,” Hakuba says. “But if there are any complications, I can slip away.”

Kaito gives a lofty wave. “Great, cool.” And time to leave.

Hakuba stays behind and Kaito slips out a cracked window in a first-floor room without any problem. Then it’s a quick walk in the shadows to meet up with Kid a few blocks away in the direction the police hadn’t raced off after a decoy in.

Kid is already back in civilian blacks and gives Kaito a wide grin. “So, have fun?” other Kaito whispers.

“Of course.” Kaito hops to sit next to him on a trash can. “You have the gem?”

It sparkles in the dim alley light.

“Good to see our plan worked perfectly,” Kaito says.

“Of course it did. We’re Kaitou Kid.” Other Kaito says it with such conviction that Kaito feels warm and fragile all at once. _We_. They are both Kid, aren’t they. Kaito sees compassion in other Kaito’s eyes even though his smile is nothing but victory.

“Yeah,” Kaito says.

Other Kaito holds out the gem. “You can do the honors.”

Kaito takes it, stone warm from the other Kaito’s pocket, and they climb up the fire escape until they can see more moonlight than street light. The gem flashes like glass shards as he holds it up, but there’s no red glow. “Hmm, not this one either.” He feels a tiny curl of disappointment.

“Well we’ll just try again.” Other Kaito plucks the gem from Kaito’s palm, magicking it away to a pocket.

They sit side by side, legs dangling in open air. Neither of them have ever feared heights. And it’s nice, up this high to watch the moon and what few stars shine past the glow of light pollution. “Thanks,” Kaito says, comfortable against other Kaito’s warm side. “For letting me help.”

Other Kaito hums. “You were Kid first,” he says. “Can’t give you back your day to day life, but we can have this, right?”

Kaito nods. It’s something shared, but… It’s still Kaito’s. They’re still planning to get justice for his dad and that’s enough for now. Maybe it won’t be tomorrow, and maybe it wasn’t when he first woke up again, but for the moment at least he feels pretty good. A lot of that he owes to other Kaito, like it or not. They guy’s annoyingly nice considering he came from Kaito, and Kaito’s never pretended to be anything less than selfish.

But maybe Kaito understands a bit more why other Kaito’s like that these days. It’s hard to confront your own humanity or lack of it. It’s hard to confront, Kaito knows too well, your own mortality.

“I can’t promise I’m not going to get mad at you sometimes,” Kaito says into the dark.

Other Kaito snorts. “I can’t promise that either. You’re a total brat sometimes.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Obviously.” Other Kaito’s teeth glint bright in a smile.

“…I don’t hate having you as a brother,” Kaito admits.

A warm arm curls around his shoulders. “I don’t hate having you as a brother either.”

It’s nice. …A little too nice though and so after a minute Kaito shrugs off the arm and pushes all the vulnerable emotions away. “Home?”

“Home.”

o*0*O*0*o

Other Kaito, Aoko, and Hakuba are curled up on the couch when Kaito gets home from another (somewhat stressful) adventure with the Shounen Tantei (another corpse, another day, surely these children were accumulating mental trauma, right?) They’re watching a movie, something in English with subtitles, and Kaito watches just long enough to get the impression that it’s probably a drama with a romantic side plot before he decides to join them. He’s all pointy elbows and knees as he climbs into Aoko and other Kaito’s laps, but they welcome him into the mix anyway.

“Bad day?” other Kaito whispers.

“Body,” Kaito says under his breath. “Drowned body.”

Other Kaito and Hakuba both grimace, though Hakuba’s at least trying to pretend he’s not listening in. Honestly, Kaito’s past caring these days. Hakuba’s not that bad really.

“Need hugs?” Aoko offers.

“Please.” Kaito buries his face in the soft curve of her stomach, half-listening to the movie as Aoko strokes his hair. It’s nice. He could fall asleep like this, breathing in Aoko’s scent and other Kaito’s hand absently on his leg. And even Hakuba’s thigh touching his toes. There’s something nice about this much casual intimacy and he gets it now why they were always cuddling up. It doesn’t bother him so much now that he knows he can crawl into the pile and have a place.

Kaito zones out, the long day bleeding away into contentment. On screen, the movie reaches a dramatic climax that he’s barely aware of. It’s all just noise and Aoko’s heartbeat and breath is so much more soothing. He snaps out of it when the credits start rolling though and the others shift, trying to find a more comfortable position after being still so long.

“You okay?” Aoko asks softly as Kaito whines in protest.

“No, my pillows are moving.”

Other Kaito smacks the back of his leg lightly. “Brat.”

“It’s comfy though.” Kaito rolls so he’s looking up at them. “You guys had a whole movie of cuddling, I had maybe half.”

Aoko laughs and drags him into a hug. He’s never going to admit how much he enjoys being pressed against her chest even in this form. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty of cuddles to go around.”

“Thank you, Aoko, you’re my favorite.”

“Well there is no surprise there,” Hakuba says drily.

There’s nothing to throw at him, so Kaito sticks his tongue out. Thinking of forms and, er _appreciation_ , his mind switches tracks. “Oh. I forgot, but Haibara says that she has a prototype cure just about ready to try.”

“You forgot,” other Kaito says in disbelief.

“Look, the corpse thing kind of derailed my day. Anyway, yeah, I’m going to test it in a week or so. And good news is that she’s pretty sure she’s almost done with a permanent cure for Edogawa so it’s just a step away for finding one for me.”

“That’s great,” Aoko says, hugging him just a bit tighter. “Are you excited?”

“A little? But not as much as I thought I’d be?” The end is in sight and he’s surprisingly not chomping at the bit to reach it. Go figure. “But it will be nice to be in my correct body.”

Other Kaito smiles, but Kaito knows him well enough to spot the edge of uncertainty there.

Loudly, Kaito says, “I’m going to have to figure out a whole new identity all over again! Since you’re living your best life.” It’s pointed enough that other Kaito’s smile goes chagrinned instead of insecure. Good. “Maybe I’ll just keep ‘Ayato’. It’s not a bad name. Ooh, you can help me look for universities. Or maybe just how to get through high school finals.”

“You’re sure?” other Kaito asks.

“Of course. We can pull off long lost twins, right?” He looks expectantly at Aoko and Hakuba and is rewarded with Aoko giggling and Hakuba giving him a long-suffering sigh.

“Well, no one could claim you don’t look similar,” Hakuba says.

“Identical.”

“Similar,” Hakuba stresses. “I’m not sure you would be completely identical anymore.”

Hmm well isn’t that a thought. “Eh, even identical twins aren’t actually one hundred percent identical. We can still play it up. Ooh!” Kaito grins. “Hey, when Edogawa is Kudo again, we can all three show up and confuse the hell out of people.” No public sightings in ages then, bam, Kudo’s face everywhere. It would be hilarious.

“Maybe wait until there isn’t a crime syndicate out to kill him. Or you for that matter,” Hakuba says, dry as a desert.

“Killjoy.”

“We’ll save it for when he least expects it,” other Kaito promises.

“Yeah?”

“Oh, definitely. His face would be priceless.”

Kaito grins and grins and Aoko keeps holding him and he finally feels right with the world. He’s so glad he got to have this. That they didn’t pull the plug all those months ago.

“It’s a plan then.”

The future is a nebulous thing, fragile and uncertain, but he’s beginning to pick it out, like lines of thread building up an image stitch by stitch. It’s probably not going to be the grand center-stage life he thought before he became Kid, before he died. But Kaito’s okay with that. He’s finally okay with knowing things have changed and he’s changed with them. At peace with himself as much as he’s able. All of himself; past, present, and offshoot in a robot body.

Kaito is Ayato is Kid is Kaito. And he’s looking forward to seeing what Kaito will become.


End file.
